The disbanding of the State militia by order of the Florida convention and steady withdrawal of troops for service in the Army of Tennessee forced the abandonment of Apalachicola by the military, while the Federal blockading fleet hovered off the coast. Florida created its Coast Guard in early October 1861 to defend its long shoreline. Northern military incursions and slave seizures increased in 1862 while Lincoln’s administration was negotiating with the Danes and Dutch to take those seized for their Caribbean sugar plantations.
Fish and Oyster Subsistence
“People expected Apalachicola sooner or later to experience the fate of Cedar Keys, Jacksonville, St. Augustine and Fernandina; therefore, many inhabitants followed the retiring troops to the interior. The northern blockaders had demanded in March 1862, that the town be surrendered and the people forthwith to take the oath of allegiance to the union. Whereupon a committee of citizens – among them the Roman Catholic priest responded: “The city is defenseless. There are no soldiers or arms; but there is no one having authority to surrender it.” The answer closed with the opinion that there was “no one who would take the oath of allegiance except some —- foreigners.”
The expected visitation from the Federals soon followed this candid reply. On the night of April 2nd, 1862, a boat expedition put off from two warships to find some 500 people – mostly poor whites and free Negroes – remaining out if a total population of 2500 with the streets and wharves deserted. Destitution was apparent – no flour, no sugar, no meat, very little corn. The people were dependent on fish and oysters for subsistence.
A man in the crowd called out: “Captain, some of our boys [meaning negroes] have gone to your ship. Will they be given up?” The commander responded: “No. They have been used to transport soldiers and arms, in building fortifications and a gunboat to be used against the United States. You will never get relief for their loss.”
This comparatively unimportant affair alarmed the people of the lower Chattahoochee valley, with the Columbus, Georgia voting funds to obstruct navigation above Apalachicola with a submerged boom.”
(The Civil War & Reconstruction in Florida, William Watson Davis, Columbia University, 1913, pp. 162-163)