Olustee 1864: Seymour's Rogue March and the 54th Massachusetts Train Haul

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The Union's second deadliest battle by proportion of men lost was fought in a Florida pine forest on February 20, 1864. After the fall of Vicksburg cut the Confederacy off from Texas cattle, Florida's beef and salt became essential to feeding Southern armies in the Carolinas and Virginia. In an election year, Abraham Lincoln wrote to Major General Quincy A. Gillmore about establishing a loyal government in Florida, and Gillmore planned coastal enclaves, raids on supply lines and the recruitment of Black soldiers. Brigadier General Truman Seymour landed at Jacksonville and won easy early victories, then ignored his orders to stay near the coast and marched inland toward Tallahassee, assuming he faced only militia. P.G.T. Beauregard read the threat correctly and sent veteran troops under Alfred H. Colquitt by rail to reinforce General Joseph Finegan.

Near Olustee Station, with about 5,000 Confederates anchored on Ocean Pond, Seymour fed his 5,500 men into the open pine woods a few regiments at a time, and they were cut apart before the next units arrived. Veterans of Vicksburg and Virginia described it as some of the fiercest fighting they had seen. Confederate officers' own diaries and letters state that the pursuit stalled because troops were killing wounded and captured Black Union soldiers left behind. The 54th Massachusetts and the 35th U.S. Colored Troops held the rear guard into the night. Two days later, men of the 54th turned back to rescue wounded comrades on a broken-down train, hauling it with ropes. The Union gave up further inland campaigns in Florida, and the beef and salt supply stayed open to the Confederacy for another year.

• Union losses totaled 1,861, about 34 percent of Seymour's force, while the Confederates lost 946, about 19 percent.
• By proportion of casualties, the battle trails only Gettysburg among Union defeats in the war.
• The 54th Massachusetts dragged the dead locomotive three miles by hand to Camp Finegan, then seven more with help from horses, over 42 hours.
• The Confederate Congress passed a resolution of thanks, and a Georgia newspaper mocked Union troops for marching into a swamp only to sprint back to their boats.
• Olustee Battlefield Historic State Park sits in Osceola National Forest and hosts reenactments each Presidents Day weekend, but as of 2022 it had no monument to the Union dead.