THE
GOVERNOR AND THE GUNBOAT:
AN
INCIDENT IN CIVIL WAR PALATKA, FLORIDA
P.
C. Doherty
Tallahassee,
Florida
Florida's first Governor elected under statehood,
William Dunn Moseley, enjoyed a life punctuated by affairs in which the
differences between winning and losing, between success and failure, between
living his last days as a free man or in a prison cell, were slight.
The most famous of these episodes took place when
he was thirty-nine. Born to privilege
in North Carolina in 1795, Moseley had, by 1834, built a lucrative law practice
in Wilmington and was a member of the North Carolina State Senate. In this year he offered himself as a
candidate for the Democratic nomination for governor but lost by only three
votes. Within a year of this defeat, Moseley
permanently removed himself to Florida.(1)
The most obscure incident took place twenty-eight
years later in Palatka, where Moseley, by now a former governor of Florida,
resided in retirement. This lesser
known affair is intriguing, as it took place against the backdrop of war and
the closely-decided question it involved was, for Moseley, literally one of
life and death.
The time was 1862, late in the month of June. Over a year had passed since the fall of
Fort Sumter, and the St. John's River in northeast Florida was effectively a no
man's land. Although it flowed through
territory belonging to a Confederate state, through land largely controlled by
Confederate forces and citizens loyal to them, since the federal evacuation of
Jacksonville in April of 1862, the river had been open to any who had the
strength to enforce passage.
Confederate and Union ships, as well as the vessels of private
freebooters, plied the waterway mostly without incident, even though the Union
Navy busied itself from time to time by carrying out campaigns to halt the flow
of Rebel supplies. The majority of this
traffic was river borne, although some commerce in cash crops did flow between
Florida and the offshore islands in the Atlantic. Given, however, the state's small population and lack of good
ports, this traffic was minimal as was the job of interdiction.(2)
Of all the prizes of the upper St. Johns, none was
more important to both sides than was Palatka, situated as it is on a small
plain below high ground at a place where the river bends so sharply as to
nearly turn back on itself.(3) Like the
river, Palatka was under the nominal control of the Confederates, but their
presence in the summer of 1862 was limited to a small, poorly trained and
equipped force under First Lieutenant J. J. Dickison.(4) Dickison's ragtag band was encamped across
the river from Palatka at a place on the east bank described as "the
Heights at the head of the White Water Branch."(5) In theory, this position gave Dickison the
opportunity to mount a defense of Palatka, but to turn theory into practice in
June 1862 would have taken much more in the way of resources than he had at his
disposal.
Both the Federal forces and the townsfolk of
Palatka knew well the Rebel commander's situation. His lack of strength had led the civilian residents to virtually
evacuate the town, when Jacksonville and the upper St. Johns came under Union
control in March 1862. According to
eyewitness accounts, the Palatka residents believed that their city would surely
be attacked and sacked by marauding units of armed negroes the Federals were
attempting to muster in Jacksonville.
One resident described the evacuation of the town's less than one
thousand residents by saying,
as soon as war was declared all the stores and
business places were closed and goods removed. . . . Families who could move away, left as soon as possible [until]
only a few [residents] remained in their homes, [and] food for [them] had to
come in from the country.(6)
For the Union, Lieutenant Dickison's lack of men
and firepower meant that so long as the navy undertook more-or-less regular
sorties up the river, it could effectively neutralize Palatka without any great
expenditure of either men or material.(7)
While the gunboat patrols served the Federal cause
by effectively keeping Palatka out of the Confederate war inventory, Southern
loyalists remained frightened and convinced that any appearance of a Union boat
might be a prelude to the all-out attack that rumors had so long predicted. One resident later remarked, "No one
felt safe, and no one knew what would come next; for months we slept in our day
clothes, changing only for a bath and fresh clothing."(8) Rumors moving upriver with various boats
were the major source of fresh war news, low in reliability and high in
urgency. Hence, rather than informing
the populace, the rumors simply fed their fears.
For others in the area, however, specifically
blacks and unionist whites, the sightings, while no less emotional, were very
differently viewed. Many used the
opportunity afforded by a boat on patrol to escape: the blacks to freedom and
to join the Union forces; the whites to a more congenial political atmosphere
where they were less likely to lose their lives as a result of the raid they,
too, believed to be imminent.(9)
During one of these comings of a boat to Palatka,
former Governor Moseley experienced what would become the closest of his close
calls. He would face an election of
sorts, one in which the personal stakes were high indeed, and in which the
holder of the franchise would be his enemy.
The month of June, 1862, found W. D. Moseley,
sixty-seven years of age, fully retired from business and public life, and in
poor health. He made his home about a
half mile outside of Palatka on a modest plantation he had purchased in 1851,
two years after leaving the governor's chair.(10) After a brief return to the public stage in 1855 when he served
as a member of the Florida House of Representatives,(11) he rarely came into
town and his neighbors saw little of him.
However, the arrival at Palatka of the Federal armed tugboat, Hale, provided the governor with
sufficient reason to undertake the journey.(12)
The Hale's
nominal reason for calling at Palatka was to evacuate a family of Northern
sympathizers who had appealed for passage when the Federals evacuated
Jacksonville. Few local citizens
believed this story. So, as she was to
be moored on the riverfront for at least a day while the crew saw to the
loading of supplies and the evacuee family's effects, the former governor, at
the request of his neighbors, went into town to pay his respects to her acting
master, Lieutenant Foster. He was to
attempt to determine whether the Yankees had any nefarious schemes in mind.(13)
Moseley arrived on the docks during the forenoon
watch, and Lieutenant Foster received him warmly. He assured the former governor that his boat was not the vanguard
of an invasion force and that he had no orders or intent to sack the
village. The Hale would be content simply to get what she had come for and
leave. Lieutenant Foster, however, also allowed that his crew was nervous. Runaway blacks who had boarded the tug in
search of asylum had alleged that a "Confederate Lieutenant"(14) had
threatened to set up a sniper's nest behind the nearby Presbyterian Church from
where sharpshooters could "pick [men] from the gunboat."(15) The acting master warned, "should a
single gun be fired by accident or otherwise," the crew would not hesitate
to "burn the town."(16)
Moseley told Foster that, to the best of his knowledge, there were no
Confederate troops on the Palatka side of the river. The "threat," he said, must be a rumor repeated or
invented by the runaways. Rebel
soldiers, he further explained, did come to town from time to time, but he was
sure that any who had been around had crossed the river before the Hale reached the pier. In all probability, the governor said, they
would not return until the tug departed as usually happened when any Federals
were spotted making in the direction of the village.(17) Unfortunately, as events of the next
hour-and-a-half or so would show, the Master took his prominent visitor's
opinion as something much more definite.
Moseley stayed perhaps an hour aboard the Hale and departed on cordial terms. But before he could even manage to leave the
town's center, firing began. A jittery
Union lookout spotted horsemen on the hilltops above the town, and the tug
began firing in their direction. The Hale's gun was, like as not, a tiny,
brass boarding cannon meant for close range defense and not for long range
bombardment. To be sure, the Hale's gun was inadequate to the task,
but her gunners were lusty sorts who kept the barrel hot.(18)
With shot whizzing over their heads and thudding,
however ineffectually, into the lower slopes of the hills, panic set in among
the Palatkans. Many were sure that the
"bombardment" was the start of the long‑anticipated
sacking. "Men, women, and children
were running and screaming,(19) one witness recalled, and most assumed that the
men on the hilltops were only the first targets of the bloodthirsty
Federals. They and their homes would be
next.
As for the men on the hill, both the townsfolk and
the sailors assumed they were under the active command of Lieutenant
Dickison. What most did not know was
that he and the bulk of his men had gone, and the soldiers they saw were men
from his unit who had chosen, on their own, to remain behind. So long as the town and their families
appeared safe, they meant the sailors no harm.
They had crossed the river during the night just to be nearby should the
Yankees take any threatening actions.
What, if anything, the almost unarmed and barely trained rebels could
have done in the face of a real attack is uncertain at best.(20)
It is not clear how long the
"bombardment" continued, but however long it was, the boom of the
little shipboard gun sufficiently fed the fear that general ignorance made seem
so plausible. At last, in the face of
growing hysteria, the only two people near at hand who knew what was really
going on vis-à-vis the Confederate forces decided they must step forward. Mrs. Mary Emily Boyd and her friend, Mrs.
Lynch, had learned the night before that Dickison and his men would be pulling
back and that no sniper nest would be established. For their own reasons, they had initially kept this information
to themselves, but with shot flying and their neighbors cowering in terror,
they concluded that revealing it might be the only way to stop the disaster
which seemed to be looming.(21)
With their decision made, the women tried to
enlist the help of some gentleman to deliver their news of the Rebel withdrawal
to the Hale, but all refused. After expressions of sympathy and regret,
the ladies were told again and again, "that any man who would go there
would be arrested."(22) Finally,
quite by chance, they encountered Governor Moseley. He listened and consented to accompany them, if they would agree
to relay the story themselves. Given
the situation, they accepted his offer, and the trio set off in search of the
leader of the group of Union sailors who had come ashore to gather the
belongings of the evacuee family.
Within a few minutes, the two young women and the
former chief executive of the State of Florida found the detail's commander
who, without waiting to be asked, reiterated that orders were orders and if any
Rebels started shooting the crew had instructions to finish the matter by
levelling the place. Mrs. Boyd did her
best to make clear to him that the offending officer and his men had left the
area the night before and that the men on the hill were merely concerned about
their families.(23)
At first her words seemed wasted. The Yankee, who was as overexcited and
nervous as everyone else, seemed not to hear or understand. Finally, though, her persistence paid off,
and the sailor reluctantly consented to request Foster to come ashore and hear
her out. The lieutenant soon
appeared. Despite the continued booming
of the cannon, he listened politely as Mrs. Boyd repeated what she knew. Foster seemed inclined to believe her, but
he still expressed doubts by restating his own position: "It is not our wish to needlessly
destroy life or property, but anything that becomes an obstacle to us in the
use of this river will be put out of our way."(24)
The acting master of the Hale then turned toward Governor Moseley, stared the old man
straight in the face and minced no words in saying that he felt his trust had
been betrayed: "Why did you tell me," he demanded of his recent guest
that,
there were no Confederate soldiers on this side of
the river when you visited the gunboat this morning? Did you hope to get us in ambush? What was your object? [If
you had hoped to trap us, you failed, because even as] you were telling us
there were no soldiers here our watch saw them with a glass, and our guns were
turned to them.(25)
Moseley was taken aback. He knew what Foster was suggesting. Given his association with the ladies and his prominence as a former
governor, Foster believed that he knew more--much more--than he was letting on
and that the Yankee lieutenant suspected treachery. If the acting master's suspicions were not quashed, he would be
arrested as a spy, and two possible fates awaited spies--the firing squad or
prison. At the same time, and to make
matters worse, Moseley knew that to prove his innocence he would need a good
explanation, and he simply did not have one.
Telling the truth by pleading ignorance would do nothing except make him
look either an old fool or a spectacularly inept liar, especially given his
earlier comments which the master had taken as "assurances." So, with his back against the wall, Moseley
did the only thing he could think of which might stave off--if for only a
moment--his being clapped in irons.
Turning to Mrs. Boyd, who seemed to have had some success in gaining a
measure of the Union officer's trust, he blurted: "For God's sake, Madam,--Explain!"(26)
With this act the future of Florida's first
governor under statehood became dependent upon the enemy commander's acceptance
of what was said by a young woman both had met but minutes earlier. Mrs. Boyd rose to the task. She told the Yankee that, because the
retired governor lived quietly outside of town, he was not likely to have heard
of the sniping threat, of the Confederate unit's departure, or of the small
contingent of concerned, but basically harmless, Rebel soldiers who had crossed
the river the previous night. She
reiterated that she and Mrs. Lynch were, as far as she knew, the only people
then in Palatka who knew for certain that the Southern commander had decided to
withdraw. Virtually no one else the
acting master might question, including Moseley, would be able to say with any
confidence that the threat to him, his men, and his boat no longer existed,
because none but they had heard it from the rebel leader himself. Moseley, she said, could not have lied,
because, like virtually everyone else in town, he knew nothing. "I feel sure," she told him,
"Governor Moseley did not intend to deceive you."(27)
With the argument thus put, all fell silent as
Lieutenant Foster paused to consider his options. He turned to the anxious Governor. "I accept Mrs. Boyd's
explanation," he said, "and I want to tell you that it has saved you
from being taken prisoner." Then
he complimented Mrs. Boyd, telling her that she should take pride in what she
had accomplished:
You have done well. Should you live a hundred years you can look back on this as the
best day's work you have ever done. You
have saved lives and property and also saved an old man from being taken
prisoner of war.(28)
Following the lieutenant's verdict, the
delegations parted, and shortly thereafter, as a kind of seal on the mission's
success, the cannon ceased firing, thereby returning to the hamlet its peace
and quiet.(29) The adventure was over.
During the balance of the afternoon, the Hale concluded her business and steamed
north toward Jacksonville never to return.
Life, the war, and the river moved on.
By January 1863, Governor William D. Moseley was
dead, but he had died a free man in his own home.(30) Yet the possibility remains stark that the situation could have
been much different. The efforts of
Mrs. Boyd on his behalf on that day in late June, barely six months before he
entered the grave, had, like as not, saved him from breathing his last as a
Yankee prisoner. Due to her help, he
had prevailed by a single vote in what became his final, most closely decided,
and possibly most important, contest.
***
Mr. Dogherty is a
graduate student in History at Florida State University.
ENDNOTES
1. Allen C. Morris,
comp., The Florida Handbook: 1993-1994
(Tallahassee, FL: Peninsula Publishing Co., 1993), 319.
2. David D. Porter, The Naval History of the Civil War (New
York: The Sherman Publishing Co., 1886), 84-85, 672-676.
3. During this period,
the spelling of "Palatka," as known today, was not a settled
thing. As often as not in dispatches
and reports from both the Union and Confederate sides, the town is referred to
as "Pilatka." Mary Elizabeth
Dickison, Dickison and His Men:
Reminiscences of the War in Florida (Gainesville: University of Florida
Press, 1962; reprint ed., 1890), 9-46.
4. Dickison had resigned
from Captain John M. Martin's Marion Light Artillery at the end of May 1862 in
order to raise his own cavalry command.
In August 1862, he would be appointed as Captain of Company H, Second
Florida Cavalry. The group he brought
together near Palatka in June formed the nucleus of this unit. Ibid.
5. Palatka News (FL), Apr. 27, 1917.
6. Ibid.
7. Porter, Naval History, 84-85, 672-676; Dickison,
Dickison and His Men, 9-46; T.
Frederick Davis, History of Jacksonville,
Florida and Vicinity, 1513 to 1924 (Gainesville, FL: University of Florida
Press, Floridiana Facsimile & Reprint Series, 1964; reprint ed., 1925),
116-137.
8. Palatka News (FL), Apr. 27, 1917.
9. Ibid.
10. Morris, Florida Handbook, 319.
11. Moseley's signal
contribution to the 1855 Session of the Legislature was his proposal to move
the State Capital from Tallahassee to a more centrally located place. The move went nowhere, but, interestingly,
the idea of doing so--an idea which has cropped up again and again--was first
advanced by a former chief executive of the state just a decade after Florida
had been admitted to the Union. Florida
House of Representatives, Journal of the
Florida House of Representatives, 1855.
12. In contemporary
accounts and correspondence--all from the Southern viewpoint--the Hale is always referred to by the
menacing term "gunboat."
According to Civil War naval historian, Admiral David D. Porter,
however, it was in fact a small steam-powered, shallow draft, tugboat which
boasted a small cannon designed for defensive use. Porter, Naval History,
84-85, 672-676.
13. Ibid.
14. The "Confederate
Lieutenant" was most probably Dickison himself, as it appears that there
were then no other commissioned Confederate officers in the area. Palatka News (FL), Apr. 27, 1917;
Dickison, Dickison and His Men, 9-46;
Clement A. Evans, Confederate Military
History, ext. ed., vol. 16: Florida
(Wilmington, NC: Broadfoot Publishing Co., 1989; reprint ed., Confederate
Publishing Co., 1899), 42-55, 252-253.
15. Taken in context, the
crew of the Hale had ample cause for
worry. Not only were they deep in enemy
territory, but vessels of her sort boasted a complement of only 8 to 10 men,
about half of whom (the doctor, a cook or two, and the engineers) were usually
not considered to be "combatants."
Further, tugs of any sort were neither a plum command nor a coveted
posting, so the men aboard the Hale
were probably not the most skilled or experienced, whatever their specific
shipboard assignment, combatant or non-combatant. Finally, as tugs are service vessels, it is highly probable that
its able-bodied seamen, if they had any experience at all, it was in the
harbor-related or freight transport tasks associated with tugboats. Palatka
News (FL), Apr. 27, 1917; Porter, Naval
History, 84-85, 672-676.
16. Palatka News (FL), Apr. 27, 1917.
17. Ibid.
18. Ibid.; Porter, Naval History,
84-85, 672-676.
19. Palatka News (FL), Apr. 27, 1917.
20. Ibid.
21. Ibid.
22. There is no record of
how many men the ladies actually spoke with, however, the number could not have
been large, because this entire episode occurred so quickly. Yet, to them time must have seemed greatly
elongated as time will during a crisis.
Ibid.
23. Ibid.
24. Considering the size
of his tiny command and his isolation, this oath of Lt. Foster seems a bit on
the boastful side. Ibid.
25. Ibid.
26. Ibid.
27. Ibid.
28. Ibid.
29. Ibid.
30. Morris, Florida Handbook, 319.