An interesting period in the regional history of the panhandle is the few years during the War Between the States. Although events here merit little historical interest compared to many terrible events during this time, this region was a war area and there are interesting stories.
In 1862 the Confederate Army defending the coast at Pensacola and at Apalachicola was ordered to move north to meet the Northern military’s advance into Tennessee. Small detachments of Southern troops were left in the area. Locally they were stationed along the Perdido River and on the railway along the Escambia River to monitor the growing number of Union troops at the forts on Escambia Bay. The town of Pensacola was then practically abandoned as residents took the last trains out and retreated into the interior. Consequently, depot stops on the railroad like Bluff Springs, Pollard, and Evergreen became thriving towns.
The years of 1862 and 1863 were then relatively quiet times as the West Florida region faded as military interests. Union forces only occasionally ventured east along the coast, to the town of Milton and into the interior on raids which harassed the inhabitants, slowed blockade runners and secured livestock and building materials for the ever-growing military encampments. By the end of 1863, the region had grown weary of the war. At that time a new Union commander arrived.
Alexander Asboth was an immigrant. He had held a high rank in the revolutionary army of Governor Kossuth in Hungary in the late 1840s and after that effort failed, had arrived in America on a ship sent by the U.S. Government to retrieve Kossuth. When Kossuth returned to Europe after a national tour, Asboth stayed. Holding much prestige in the North, he settled in New York and later became a naturalized citizen. Shocked by the decision of the South to withdraw from what he felt was the best government in the world, he volunteered to go to Europe and raise troops for the Union.
His offer was declined, but he was made a Brigadier General who then served in Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky and Mississippi. Severely wounded while leading one battle, he was already considered a hero when he arrived at Pensacola.
During the spring of 1864, Yankees and Rebels only skirmished near the Union lines around Fort Barrancas. Then, in the middle of July Asboth was ordered to meet an unattached portion of General Sherman’s army that was pushing south through Alabama. Asboth moved with about 1,100 men north toward the stronghold of Pollard, Alabama and on the 25th took the local Confederate command center in a new log fortification at Gonzalez, along with troop payrolls, livestock and many supplies. Soon learning that Sherman’s troops had returned north and hearing reports of massed Rebel forces at Pine Barren, he returned to Pensacola. In August, after urging to increase pressure on the Rebels, Asboth with 1400 troops began marching west with plans to assault the Alabama coast’s salt works but returned from Garson Point after learning that Union troops had landed near Fish River. Two weeks later he successfully led 200 men against a small mounted Rebel force near Milton. Then in the middle of September, Asboth decided to move on West Florida’s only sizeable Confederate town, Marianna. It would later be known as the deepest penetration into Confederate Florida by Union forces during the whole war.
Although the town of Marianna had a population of only about 500, it was surrounded by one of the most populated regions of the state and was home to Governor Milton. By 1864 it was the communication and highway hub, as well as military commissary of West Florida. The site included a post hospital, government stables, a training camp and many quartermaster warehouses. Unfortunately, losses to the Confederate military had left the region a defensive force of a few cavalry units and the “Cradle to Grave” militia made up of old men, walking wounded and some boys.
In the middle of September Asboth with 700 mounted troops quick-marched from today’s Gulf Breeze eastward on the old Jackson Road. As they passed farms and hamlets, the Yankees cut a path of thievery and destruction. After skirmishes at Euchee Anna and Campbellton, the large Union force then descended on Marianna. The Rebel cavalry met the Union troops at the edge of town, but quickly fell back, two parallel streets of the town then becoming battlegrounds. While defenders along one street escaped across the river, many militia members along the other street sought shelter around a church, using picket fences as cover. About 75 men of the 82nd and 86th U.S. Colored Infantry held in reserve were then ordered to rush the compound. It is here that the colored troops are remembered bayoneting the overwhelmed and surrendering defenders as well as the defenseless.
As a result of the battle, four hundred head of cattle, 200 horses and mules were seized along with vast amounts of quartermaster stores. Anything considered useful to the Confederates was destroyed and more than 600 slaves taken. Almost every leader of the town, except the doctor, was carried away; more than 10% of the town’s population was killed, wounded, or made prisoner. Local historians state that it took 50 years for the area to recover.
While leading his troops at Marianna, Asboth was shot in the face and his arm shattered by another shot. He eventually recovered, but the wound to his face never healed. He was later promoted to Major General and assigned to post-war recovery in the panhandle, then appointed U.S. Minister to Argentina and Uruguay. He died in 1868, the result of an infection to his unhealed wound. General Alexander Asboth, a person undoubtedly of note in our regional history.
