The Battle of Marianna, Florida
The Raid
Home to a Governor
Sylvania Plantation, home of
Florida's Civil War governor,
stood just outside of Marianna.
A Look Back in Time
This ca. 1870 photograph of
downtown Marianna offers a
good idea of what the city looked
like when Union and
Confederate forces battled along
its main street in 1864.
The raid against Marianna began on September 18, 1864. Union troops had
already been crossing Pensacola Bay from Fort Barrancas for a couple of days by
that point, but this was the day that the advance elements of Asboth’s column
began to move east down the old Military or Jackson road along Santa Rosa
Sound.
The route of the soldiers can still be traced in places. One section of the old road
is preserved at the Washington Oaks section of Gulf Islands National Seashore
along U.S. Highway 98 a few miles east of Gulf Breeze.
Asboth continued along this route until he reached the “Narrows” of Santa Rosa
sound (just west of Fort Walton Beach), where he received additional supplies
from the Quartermaster steamer “Lizzie Davis” and turned inland on September
21st.
The raiders swept up through modern Okaloosa and Walton Counties, rounding
up a few prisoners and seizing cattle and other supplies. They reached the
present site of Defuniak Springs on the afternoon of September 22, 1864, and
camped along the shore of what is now Lake Defuniak. Moving out before
daybreak the next morning, they attacked a camp of Confederate cavalrymen at
nearby Eucheeanna Courthouse.
There wasn’t much to the skirmish at Eucheeanna (three miles southeast of
Defuniak Springs). The troopers of the 2nd Maine Cavalry rushed onto the
Confederate camp, occupied by a few dozen men from the 15th Confederate
Cavalry and Captain Robert Chisolm’s company of Alabama cavalry. The
Confederates were reported to be “enforcing the conscription” or draft, and all but
a few were captured. No casualties were reported.
Asboth moved north from Eucheeanna on the morning of the 24th, continuing to
inflict heavy damage to the farms and plantations of the area as he went. He
crossed the Choctawhatchee River at Cerrogordo in Holmes County on the 25th
and picked up his rate of march, arriving near the small town of Campbellton in
Jackson County by the afternoon of the 26th.
Somewhere in the Campbellton vicinity, the Federals collided with units of local
volunteers who had been called out upon receiving news of the raid. A brief
skirmish resulted, in which three Confederates were captured. The rest of the
Southern volunteers fell back rapidly towards Marianna and Asboth made camp
for the night.
In Marianna, although earlier word had been received of the Federal presence in
Walton County, the first real news of the impending danger came when riders
came in from Campbellton to report the approach of Asboth’s column. Colonel
Alexander B. Montgomery, a veteran Confederate officer who had been wounded
at the Battle of Second Manassas, quickly organized his available forces and rode
out to meet the Federals with two companies of cavalry. Riders were also sent to
alarm the countryside and call in additional troops from the area.
