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A History of Columbia County Florida (1996) Edward F. Keuchel 110/340

Events of the Civil War

Confederate wounded were taken by rail to Lake City where a
hospital was set up in the Cathey House. Some were taken on to
Tallahassee. On the day of the battle a train pulling twelve cars,
each holding forty to sixty men, carried the wounded to Lake City.
Additional wounded were brought in over the next two days. Many
of the wounds were on the arms and legs of the soldiers as many of
them fought from behind pine trees which offered a measure of
protection to the main parts of their bodies.51 In her diary entry of
February 22,1864, Susan Bradford Eppes related that among the
wounded soldiers taken to Tallahassee for treatment was an
eleven-year old boy from Macon, Georgia.52
Burial of those who died on the battle field was left to the
Confederates. The Federal soldiers were buried at Olustee, and
after the war the remains were exhumed and taken to the National
Cemetery at Beaufort, South Carolina, for reinterment. The Con­
federate dead were buried in Oak Lawn Cemetery in Lake City.53
For the Confederacy Olustee was a great victory. The Con­
federate congress and the Florida legislature voted resolutions of
thanks to General Finegan.54 Captain J. T. Stephens of the Second
Florida Cavalry, who participated in the fight, wrote to his wife on
February 21, 1864, that “men never fought better than our men,
did, and God seemed to shield them in a great measure from
destruction. . . .”55 Ellen Call Long related that at church on
Sunday-morning, February 21, 1864, the congregation had not
heard the news and was startled when the clergyman offered
thanks for victory. She related: “almost everyone in the building

51 Boyd, “Campaign of 1864,” pp. 30-31. T. H. Bates, “Doctors Date to Civil War
Days,” Lake City Reporter, December 13, 1974.
52Eppes, Through Some Eventful Years, p. 234.
“Boyd, “Campaign of 1864,” p. 29.
“Johns, Florida During the Civil War, p. 199.
55Raymond E. Giror and Edwin S. Taylor, “Florida Confederates: An Original
Find,” Confederate Philatelist (July-August, 1976), p. 91.

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