Freedom by the Sword - US Army Center Of Military History

The South Atlantic Coast, 1863 –1865 63
Penn. Col. Edward N. Hallowell now led the 54th Massachusetts and Col. Benjamin
C. Tilghman the 3d USCI. The 8th USCI, recently arrived from Philadelphia, served
in an otherwise white brigade; the regiment’s commander was Col. Charles W. Fribley.
All of the black regiments’ colonels had held commissions in white volunteer
regiments and were veterans of the first two years of fighting in the eastern theater of
war. The entire Union force numbered about seven thousand men. 9
On 7 February 1864, the expedition steamed and sailed through the mouth of the
St. John’s River, passing white sandy beaches and continuing upstream to the burnt
ruins of Jacksonville. Confederate pickets were waiting on shore and opened fire as
soon as the Maple Leaf, bearing General Seymour, Major Appleton, and three companies
of the 54th Massachusetts, moored at the city’s fish market wharf. The men
disembarked at once and moved away from the waterfront. “The sand was deep, and
we could not keep our alignment, but Seymour kept calling to me to have the men
dress up,” Appleton recalled. His men drove the Confederates off quickly, wounding
and capturing one of them. The rest of the expedition disembarked and the next day
began to move into the country outside the town. The 3d USCI occupied Baldwin,
a railroad junction eighteen miles west of Jacksonville that consisted of a depot and
warehouse, a hotel, and a few shabby houses. Seymour arrived on 9 February and
pushed on to the west, following the mounted troops of his command. The telegraph
line between Baldwin and Jacksonville was in working order two days later. 10
At this point, the expedition began to show the first signs of falling apart. Early
on the morning of 11 February, Seymour sent a telegram from Baldwin to Maj.
Gen. Quincy A. Gillmore, the department commander, who had accompanied the
expedition as far as Baldwin but had returned to Jacksonville en route to his headquarters
in South Carolina. The message claimed that Seymour had learned much
during his four days ashore that cast doubt on both the methods and aims of the expedition.
The Florida Unionist refugees “have misinformed you,” he told Gillmore:
I am convinced that . . . what has been said of the desire of Florida to come back
[into the Union] now is a delusion. . . . I believe I have good ground for this faith,
and . . . I would advise that the force be withdrawn at once from the interior, that
Jacksonville alone be held, and that Palatka be also held, which will permit as many
Union people . . . to come in as will join us voluntarily. This movement is in opposition
to sound strategy. . . . Many more men than you have here now will be required
to support its operation, which had not been matured, as should have been done.
Seymour also warned his superior officer against “frittering away the infantry of
your department in such an operation as this.” Besides questioning Floridians’
ability to form a Unionist government (one of the expedition’s fundamental aims),
Command” on 31 January 1864, since not all of the regiments went to Florida. OR, ser. 1, vol. 35,
pt. 1, pp. 303, 315, 463.
9 Charles W. Fribley had served in the 84th Pennsylvania, Edward N. Hallowell in the 20th
Massachusetts, William W. Marple in the 104th Pennsylvania, and Benjamin C. Tilghman in the
26th Pennsylvania. Luis F. Emilio, A Brave Black Regiment: History of the Fifty-fourth Regiment of
Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry (New York: Arno Press, 1969 [1894]), p. 150.
10 OR, ser. 1, vol. 35, pt. 1, p. 276; Appleton Jnl, pp. 159–60; New York Times, 20 February 1864;
Emilio, Brave Black Regiment, pp. 151, 155.