Battle of Marianna, page four

As the Union soldiers approached Marianna, they evidently believed they had the
Confederates “on the run.” Attempting to cut-off the retreating cavalrymen, Asboth
ordered a portion of his command to pursue them down the northern bypass,
while he advanced with his main column straight up the main road into Marianna.
This two pronged movement was intended to cut-off what the general believed
was a Confederate retreat, but for the outnumbered Confederates along West
Lafayette Street, it meant they were in danger of being flanked.

Seeing this, Colonel Montgomery rode quickly up to his cavalry force and began to
explain the situation to them. Before any action could be taken, however, the first
battalion of Asboth’s cavalry rounded the curve at Ely’s Corner and ran head-on
into the Confederate cavalry.

The Southern horsemen unleashed a ferocious volley on the Northern troopers,
unhorsing a number and killing or wounding several. The explosion of gunfire
stunned the Federals, bringing them to a complete halt. With Majors Nathan
Cutler trying to rally them, they fell back around the curve and out of range. Seeing
his advance battalion in retreat, Asboth spurred to the front and ordered Major
Eben Hutchinson’s battalion of the 2nd Maine to charge. The fresh troopers
roared around the curve, with Hutchinson, Cutler and Asboth himself in the lead.

The quick movement did not give the Confederates time to reload their single shot
weapons and they began to fall back in the face of the furious Union charge.
Several eyewitnesses described how the charging Federals drove Montgomery
and his cavalrymen down the street. One remembered that the fleeing
Confederates looked like a “flock of sheep.”

The retreating Southerners quickly got over and around the barricade across the
street and began to withdraw towards Courthouse Square and the Chipola River
bridge. The Federals cleared the barricade closely behind them and were
charging three and four deep down the street when the concealed volunteers and
home guardsmen suddenly unleashed a wave of musket, shotgun and rifle fire on
them from along the sides of the street. According to both Union and Confederate
accounts, virtually every officer and man at the head of the charging column was
mowed down.

General Asboth himself was severely wounded in the arm and cheek. Captain
Mahlon M. Young of the 7th Vermont fell dead from nearly one dozen wounds.
Majors Cutler and Hutchinson of the 2nd Maine were severely wounded, as were
numerous other officers and men.

The blast of gunfire, however, was not enough. A portion of the Union column
continued down the street after the retreating Confederate cavalry, while the rear
turned on the local volunteers in a ferocious firefight. The battle now degenerated
into two separate encounters. The first took place around Courthouse Square as
Montgomery and his cavalrymen plowed into the second arm of the Union attack,
which had entered town via the northern bypass and was now blocking their
escape. Hand to hand fighting broke out around the square as the Southern
horsemen shot and hacked their way through. Colonel Montgomery himself was
toppled from his horse and captured, but a number of the cavalrymen made it
around the square and down Jackson Street to the old Chipola River bridge. Here
they made a determined stand against their Federal pursuers, with Chisolm’s
men in particular drawing praise for the manner in which they drove back the
Union attempt to seize the bridge. Finally managing to pull up the planking and
stop any further pursuit, the Confederate cavalry took up positions on the east
bank of the river and waited for reinforcements.

The second encounter of the fractured battle by now was reaching its height along
West Lafayette Street. Overwhelmed by the superior firepower and numbers of the
Federal cavalry, the local volunteers had begun falling back from their positions
along the side of the street. Taking shelter in and around St. Luke’s Episcopal
Church, they continued to exchange fire with the Union cavalrymen. In order to
bring the battle to a close, the Federal second-in-command – Colonel L.L.
Zulavsky – ordered up two picked companies from the 82nd and 86th U.S.
Colored Infantries (mounted). Dismounting under a “galling fire of buck and ball,”
these African American soldiers from Louisiana fixed bayonets and charged over
the churchyard fence and into the still firing volunteers.

Realizing that the day was lost, Captain Jesse Norwood of the Marianna Home
Guard surrendered. Since Norwood and most of his men were in civilian clothes,
however, it took a few minutes to restore order. Several wounded Confederates
later claimed they had been shot or struck after the surrender. Union officers
confirmed this in their private accounts, noting that it took some time to restore
discipline.

Even the final surrender of the “Cradle to Grave” failed to bring the fighting
completely to a close. A few Confederates remained holed up in the church and
two neighboring homes and continued to snipe away at the Federal soldiers.
When they refused to surrender, Zulavsky ordered them burned out. St. Luke’s
and the neighboring homes of Dr. R.A. Sanders and Mrs. Caroline Hunter went up
in flames. The bodies of four men were later found severely burned in the ashes.

The Battle of Marianna, remembered by some as “Florida’s Alamo,” was over.