Documents in words and pictures the triumphs and tragedies faced by Florida and Floridians during the Civil War.

"This ... narrative explores the impact of the Civil War on Florida's St. John's River region. Moving chronologically through the war years, Thunder on the river brings to light the story of the city of Jacksonville, including the surrounding countryside and its residents, be they white or black, supporters of the Confederacy or of the Union ... Based on a thorough review of a broad selection of primary sources, Thunder on the river touches on such important themes as secession, contested places, occupation, emancipation, invasions, hard war, and reconstruction. It presents local history in a national context and offers a comprehensive telling of the story of Florida's Civil War experiences from the Missouri Compromise to Reconstruction -- of Confederates and Unionists, of soldiers and civilians, of enlisted men and officers, of die-hards and deserters, of slaves and plantation owners, of ordinary men and women caught up in extraordinary events"--Jacket.

Highlights the diverse experiences of Florida's population in the US Civil War. Whether Confederate or Unionist, free or slave, male or female, no Floridian could escape the war's impact. A concise narrative of life on the home front, this book explores how Floridians endured the war. Women, slaves, and Unionists are considered in detail, as well as how various areas of the state reacted to Federal incursions.

Set on the antebellum southern frontier, this book uses the history of two counties in Florida's panhandle to tell the story of the migrations, disruptions, and settlements that made the plantation South. Soon after the United States acquired Florida from Spain in 1821, migrants from older southern states began settling the land that became Jackson and Leon Counties. Slaves, torn from family and community, were forced to carve plantations from the woods of Middle Florida, while planters and less wealthy white men battled over the social, political, and economic institutions of their new society. Conflict between white men became full-scale crisis in the 1840s, but when sectional conflict seemed to threaten slavery, the whites of Middle Florida found common ground. In politics and everyday encounters, they enshrined the ideal of white male equality--and black inequality. To mask their painful memories of crisis, the planter elite told themselves that their society had been transplanted from older states without conflict. But this myth of an "Old," changeless South only papered over the struggles that transformed slave society in the course of its expansion. In fact, that myth continues to shroud from our view the plantation frontier, the very engine of conflict that had led to the myth's creation.

Explains why citizens of Jackson County, Florida, slaughtered close to one hundred of their neighbors during the Reconstruction period following the end of the Civil War; focusing on the Freedman's Bureau, the development of African-American political leadership, and the emergence of white "Regulators."

The African American experience in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley from the antebellum period through Reconstruction This book examines the complexities of life for African Americans in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley from the antebellum period through Reconstruction. Although the Valley was a site of fierce conflicts during the Civil War and its military activity has been extensively studied, scholars have largely ignored the Black experience in the region until now. Correcting previous assumptions that slavery was not important to the Valley, and that enslaved people were treated better there than in other parts of the South, Jonathan Noyalas demonstrates the strong hold of slavery in the region. He explains that during the war, enslaved and free African Americans navigated a borderland that changed hands frequently—where it was possible to be in Union territory one day, Confederate territory the next, and no-man’s land another. He shows that the region’s enslaved population resisted slavery and supported the Union war effort by serving as scouts, spies, and laborers, or by fleeing to enlist in regiments of the United States Colored Troops. Noyalas draws on untapped primary resources, including thousands of records from the Freedmen’s Bureau and contemporary newspapers, to continue the story and reveal the challenges African Americans faced from former Confederates after the war. He traces their actions, which were shaped uniquely by the volatility of the struggle in this region, to ensure that the war’s emancipationist legacy would survive. A volume in the series Southern Dissent, edited by Stanley Harrold and Randall M. Miller

Brings to light an overlooked aspect of Florida's importance to the Confederacy. Florida's role in the Civil War has long been overlooked or discounted by students of the conflict. Despite its isolation and the lack of important land battles, the state made a contribution to the Confederate war effort far out of proportion to its small population. After seceding from the Union in 1861, Florida joined the Confederacy with a reputation, born in the 1850s, as an area of great agricultural potential for the newly created country. Rebel leaders quickly came to regard Florida as an abundant source of foodstuffs. The state became a major supplier of salt, beef, pork, and corn both for the rebel forces and for many civilians. Cattle in particular were driven northward in large numbers, providing rations for Confederate troops from Chattanooga to Charleston. Unfortunately, however, senior officials in the field and in Richmond often held unrealistic expectations about the volume of supplies Floridians could actually deliver. These same authorities for the most part also failed adequately to defend this crucial food source, a factor that may have accelerated the Confederacy's ultimate disintegration.