Battle of Olustee Reenactment 2008

Since I've already posted a few photos from previous reenactments at Olustee lately, I won't bore anyone with a lot of details today, but we spent the day out at the battlefield for this years version today and took a nice set of photos - you can explore all of them at my Flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/25921906@N00/sets/72157603925049097/

In the meantime, just a few highlights:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/25921906@N00/sets/72157603925049097/

ABC Wednesday: "C" is for Confederates

"C" is for Confederates: During the American Civil War the Southern states that seceeded from the Union formed a Confederacy, which gave more power to the individual states instead of the federal government. The Confederates in the above photo are from last year's reenactment at Olustee, Fl. It was a very cold morning (for us anyway - strong wind, temperatures around 40 F., and a wind chill in the low 30's F.) Many of the soldiers were huddled around their camp fires trying to stay warm. The flag in the foreground conveniently was situated so that the name "Ocean Pond" was showing - appropriate because the Confederates referred to the Battle of Olustee as the Battle of Ocean Pond. Conventional naming practices differed between North and South: the North tended to name battles after the nearest body of water (Bull Run, Anteitam, Beaver Dam Creek, etc.) while the Confederates tended to name battles after the nearest town (Manassas, Sharpsburg, Mechanicsville, etc.). Olustee is rare because the Confederates used the nearest body of water (Ocean Pond) while the Yankees used the nearest town (Olustee) - they flip flopped on this one!

ABC Wednesday: "B" is for Battlefield

This is the sign to the Olustee Battlefield, a state battlefield park between Jacksonville and Lake City, Florida. On February 20, 1864 a Union expeditionary force out of Jacksonville met a Confederate "army" of roughly equal strength here in the pine woods near the small railroad depot of Olustee. Over the course of a few hours that afternoon over 2,000 soldiers became casualties out of the 10,000 total men engaged. This makes Olustee one of the costliest battles of the entire American Civil War in terms of percentage of casualties per man engaged. Even though it was a small battle by Civil War standards (there were well over 100,000 men at Gettysburg the previous year in 1863 in Pennsylvania) it was still by far the largest battle fought in Florida and helped buy the Confederacy a little more time before the untilmate defeat in 1865. Florida best served the Confederacy by supplying vast quantities of beef, salt, and other food products to the Confederate armies further north, though over 14,000 Floridian men did serve under arms - including many of my ancestors, some of whom fought on this very battlefield. I grew up just 15 minutes away by car and could hear the cannons each year when they would hold the annual reenactment. I still enjoy going out every year to watch the reenactment, visit the camps and suttlers, and enjoy a trip back in time.

ABC Wednesday: "W" is for Woods

A view from a trail in on the Olustee Battlefield State Historic Site nestled within the Osceola National Forest in North Florida - pine trees and palmetto bushes as far as the eye can see.