Olustee

On February 20th, 1864, General Truman A. Seymour’s Union Army of 5,500 troops and sixteen cannons arrived in the area of Ocean Pond and Olustee Station on their way to Lake City, Florida. Despite the name, Ocean Pond was in fact a large lake. General Seymour’s plan was to destroy the Florida, Atlantic and Gulf Central Railroad bridge on the Suwannee River. He did this without orders. Had his superior commander, General Quincy A. Gillmore, received his dispatch in time, he would have been ordered back to his base. He decided to make this move based on a report that there were not that many troops in that area. Private Abraham J. Palmer, Co. D of the 48th New York Infantry remembered the landscape, “The march to and from Olustee was a terrible one, the roads often running through swamps where the water was knee deep…” [1] The landscape was not all bad though, “often the sandy roads ran through pine forests, and the resinous odors of the trees gave a balmy fragrance to the air…” [2]

Seymour’s forward cavalry had received scattered resistance from Confederate cavalry for most of the morning. When the 7th Connecticut Infantry, which was armed with Spencer repeating rifles, was moved up it was soon learned that they were up against a lot more than just cavalry. Confederate General Joseph Finegan’s army of 5,400 stood in their way. General Finegan was in fact not on the field during most of the battle, but was actually at Olustee Station and leaving actual field command to Colonel Colquitt. The 7th held out for a short time but was forced to retreat after their ammunition was expended. As the 7th Connecticut withdrew the 7th New Hampshire and the 8th United States Colored Troops moved forward. The 7th New Hampshire was quickly thrown into confusion after their commander gave conflicting orders under heavy enemy fire. This resulted in most of the regiment breaking and leaving the field. It did not help that recently most of them had been ordered to trade their Spencer rifles with another unit and got rusty muskets in return; many of which were without ramrods or locks and none of them had bayonets. The 8th USCT was not doing much better. The 8th was an untried unit and had not even had firing practice. They tried to hold, but were forced to withdraw.

At this time Colonel Barton’s brigade of New Yorkers, which contained the 47th, 48th and 115th, deployed to the right of the withdrawing 8th USCT. James Reid, Co. C of the 115th remembered his regiment going into combat on the extreme right of the Union line: “They fired rapidly and with deadly aim. Barton’s brigade opened fire. The battle now raged with unexampled fury. Men were falling here and there in great numbers.” [3]

On the left of the line where the 8th USCT had now withdrawn from, a number of artillery was left exposed. Unable to evacuate the field with all the pieces due to dead and excited horses and an effective crossfire, the gunners were forced to leave behind five guns to the enemy. To the right of where the 8th had returned the 7th Connecticut moved in after they had been resupplied.

On the right of the line the 115th continued to fight. Their ammunition was exhausted but they were able to keep up an effective fire by taking ammunition from the dead. James Reid remembered the fight: “Our gallant old brigade really seemed to have fought to exhaustion; yet they would not leave the field. Our fire was still effective, judging from an evident reluctance on the part of the foe to rapidly close in on us.” [4] Lieutenant Clarke, Co. H of the 115th also recalled the fight: “For nearly three hours I escaped injury, and when I saw my comrades shot down around me and myself uninjured, I began to conclude that I was bullet proof. Suddenly a stinging sensation was felt in my right side, and I realized that I was wounded.” [5] Clarke made his way to the rear. On his way he came upon a surgeon with twenty wounded men lying around him. While the surgeon was performing an amputation, “a cruel shell burst in their midst, and sent the mangled remains of several of them flying in all directions. I turned away from the sickening sight with horror.” [6] Clarke continued on his way and then came upon his regimental surgeon. Seeing that he was overwhelmed, he decided to make his way nine miles to Sanderson. At this time, the 54th Massachusetts and the 1st North Carolina, both black regiments, went into action. Their arrival on the field caused the Confederates to stagger saving the New Yorkers from being overrun. They formed in between the 47th and 48th, the 54th went into line on the left, already veterans they preformed well. The 1st North Carolina deployed on the right. They had never been under fire before but took the opportunity to prove themselves.

As the black troops deployed, the battered New York regiments left the field with the 7th Connecticut as the new center. At the center of the line, Sergeant Henry Lang, Co. C of the 48th New York was left alone among some guns abandoned by the artillerymen. “Everything about me was shot away – my canteen, my haversack, the skirts of my blouse; on the other hand, my cartridges were also ominously disappearing down to the fifty-sixth. I leveled to fire the fifty-seventh round at a cluster of heads behind a pine trunk; we were at close quarters; I pulled, my ball sped on its way, a crash, and I fell to one side, propping myself up with my gun.” [7] Lang had been wounded and his leg was smashed. Someone helped him to a tree but fled as the Confederates advanced. A moment later a group of Confederates rushed up to him and inquired if he was the man that had been amongst the cannon. He told them he was, and they all responded “Bully boy!” [8] After a brief exchange of words the Confederates moved on another three hundred yards. Lang started to grow faint, but he was able to cut open his pants and with the help of a handkerchief and a stick was able to stop the bleeding. He wrote, “I began to smoke to keep away faintness and kill the wretched thoughts growing apace with the darkness spreading over the battle-field, and to divert my thoughts from listening to the groans of the dying and wounded, and from the blasphemous language of some marauding soldiers who were ill-treating wounded negroes.” [9] At this time to young Confederate soldiers came to him and held a lit match up to his face. They recognized what regiment he was from and inquired about their homes in Savannah which they had not seen during the war. Lang was not able to tell them much. The Confederates lit a fire to keep him warm and one gave Lang his blanket. Before they left they gave him some water and tobacco.

Colonel Barton was given command of the final retreat, he related in his official report, “We at first retired by alternate battalions, covered by the Seventh Connecticut Volunteers, deployed as skirmishers, in our rear, they, in turn being covered by the cavalry, mounted infantry, and Elder’s Horse Battery B, [First] U.S. Artillery, all under Col. G. V. Henry, Fortieth Massachusetts Mounted Infantry.” [10] According to Barton, the retreat took place between six and seven o’clock.

As the Union Army retreated they were forced to leave many wounded behind. They were subsequently captured, many were sent to the infamous Camp Sumter for prisoners of war near Andersonville. Lieutenant Clarke recalled trying to escape capture “Some lay down along the road and declared that they could go no farther. Others were fast bleeding to death, and some fell down exhausted to die. At last I reached Sanderson … Several of us who concluded that we could go no farther, went into a hotel and lay down on the floor. A surgeon soon came in and said that unless we made all possible haste towards Barber's we would all be captured, as the rebels were close by.” [11] As he made his way to the next town he and the others he was with received help from a company of the 40th Massachusetts Mounted Infantry. “The animal which I rode carried me a mile with great difficulty, and then lay down in the mud to die.” [12] He then received the help of a mounted officer but that horse only lasted two miles. “I reached Barber's at 3 o'clock in the morning, nearly dead, and found the remnant of the regiment asleep. I sat down on a cracker box to warm myself by a campfire, when I fainted away and pitched into it headlong.” [13]

- James Finelli, BA (pending), The University at Albany

Endnotes

1. Abraham J. Palmer, The history of the Forty-eighth Regiment, New York State Volunteers, in the War for the Union, 1861-1865 (Brooklyn: Veteran association of the Regiment, 1885.) p. 133.
2. Abraham J. Palmer, The history of the Forty-eighth Regiment, New York State Volunteers, in the War for the Union, 1861-1865 (Brooklyn: Veteran association of the Regiment, 1885.) p. 133.
3. James E. Reid, 115th Scrapbook p. 21.
4. ibid.
5. James H. Clark, The Iron Hearted Regiment: Being an Account of the Battles, Marches and Gallant Deeds Performed by the 115th N. Y. Vols. (Albany, NY: J. Munsell, 1865) p. 88.
6. ibid.
7.Abraham J. Palmer, The History of the Forty-eighth regiment, New York state volunteers, in the War for the Union, 1861-1865 p. 135.
8. ibid.
9. Abraham J. Palmer, The History of the Forty-eighth regiment, New York state volunteers, in the War for the Union, 1861-1865 p. 136.
10. A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies Prepared Under the Direction of the Secretary of War, By Bvt. Lieut. Col. Robert N. Scott, Third U.S. Artillery and Published Pursuant Act of Congress Approved June 16, 1880. (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1880) Series I Vol. 35 Part I p. 302.
11.James H. Clark, The Iron Hearted Regiment: Being an Account of the Battles, Marches and Gallant Deeds Performed by the 115th N. Y. Vols. p. 89
12. ibid.
13. ibid.

Other Sources

William H. Nulty. Confederate Florida: The Road to Olustee. Tuscaloosa, Alabama: The University of Alabama Press, 1990.

John David Smith. Black Soldiers in Blue: African American Troops in the Civil War Era. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2002.

Michael Morgan. "Surprise at Ocean Pond in America’s Civil War magazine." Primedia History Group magazines, March 2005. p. 47-52.

Links to unit pages

47th New York Volunteer Infantry

48th New York Volunteer Infantry

115th New York Volunteer Infantry

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