Civil War Period
The forts of the Pensacola Bay area were of critical importance during the Civil
War period (1861-1865). The Confederate Army seized Pensacola early in 1861, but later
that year Union forces took Fort Pickens and controlled the pass from the Gulf of Mexico
into Pensacola Bay (Pearce 2000). As a result, St. Andrew Bay, which was a minor port
prior to the war, became a strategic area to the Confederacy because of “its sequestered
bayous and creek [that] afforded blockade runner’s excellent hideouts for unloading
medicine, coffee, and ammunition” (Womack 1994:37).
By 1862, St. Andrew Bay served the Confederacy as both a vital port and a
primary location for salt production. Numerous salt works, which consisted of boilers and
salt kettles for boiling down seawater to obtain salt, were constructed along the shores of
St. Andrew Bay, St. Joseph Bay, and Phillips Inlet. Salt works ranged from smaller,
hastily set up operations to more complex industrial sites. In response to the growing
importance of the St. Andrew Bay to the Confederacy, the Eastern Gulf Blockading
Squadron of the Union Navy established facilities for operations on Hurricane Island at
the entrance to the Old Pass of St. Andrew Bay and at Redfish Point, on what is now
Tyndall Air Force Base. Several Confederate ships were captured in or near the St.
Andrew area during the war and in 1863 a skirmish and the subsequent leveling of the
community and port of old St. Andrew occurred (Womack 1998). The Econfina
settlement was also raided during the Union actions against the St. Andrew area. West
(1922) describes a raid that reached 44 miles inland from the coast and resulted in the
burning of cotton, bridges, mills, storehouses, and salt works and Carswell (1991)
indicates that a raid on the Econfina area in 1864 emphasized the taking of cattle and
other livestock.
Although the large battles of the Civil War were fought elsewhere, the citizens of
the St. Andrew Bay area were involved in the war. Many settlers were divided on the
politics of the war (Carswell 1974), but a large number of the area’s residents participated
in the war either as soldiers, salt works producers and laborers, or by transporting goods
overland from St. Andrew Bay. In April 1862, for example, the 500-ton side-wheeler
Florida, which had run the Union naval blockade and unloaded tons of munitions and
rifles at the mouth of Bear Creek on North Bay, was captured while on-loading cotton.
Responding to urgent calls to help transport the cargo, residents with their “carts and
wagons from the Econfina, Holmes Valley, and Chipola settlements … [helped] to haul
away cargo from the steamer Florida” (Carswell 1974:75), probably from the old
Ormond, Young, and Sewall port at Bayhead.
The residents of the Econfina area contributed to the Confederate army. Two
Florida infantry units were made up of Washington County men: Company H, 4th Florida
Infantry (known as the “Washington County Invincibles”) and Company K of the 6th
Florida Infantry. Lieutenant Thomas H. Gainer and Walter R. Gainer, both sons of
Econfina pioneer William Gainer, were members of Company K, 6th Florida Infantry.
The sons of Econfina area settlers Sharpless and William Evans, John Russ, and Charles
Porter are also listed on the rosters of the Washington County units (Carswell 1991).
Thomas H. Gainer was wounded at Jonesboro, Georgia, in 1864 and Walter R. Gainer,
George Franklin Gainer, and their older brother William A. Gainer were taken prisoner
during the later years of the war. William A. and George F. Gainer were members of the
Confederate army, but were “home guards,” and George F. Gainer was involved with the
Confederate Government Beef Detail, according to a statement by his son George F.
Gainer, Jr., and was the Washington County Tax Collector during 1863-1865 (personal
communication, Brian Chambless, 2006).
Asboth’s raid on Marianna, located about 35 miles north-northeast of Econfina,
was the most notable action of the Civil War impacting northwest Florida. General
Alexander Asboth set out with 700 Union cavalry troops from Fort Pickens to conduct a
raid on Marianna in late 1864. Marianna, a small village of 500 people, was the Jackson
County seat and the headquarters for Confederate military operations in the region.
Between Pensacola and Marianna, Asboth’s troops wreaked havoc on the communities of
Eucheeanna, Douglass Ferry on the Choctawhatchee River, Campbellton, Orange Hill,
and Marianna, burning and looting as they passed through the countryside. The final
action of the Civil War in the area was a raid on salt works in February 1865.
Reconstruction had less impact on the St. Andrew Bay area than other regions in
northwest Florida, especially Pensacola (Carswell 1974).
