15 - Hard Times

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For most in the rural South, life turned harsher during the Civil War. Thousands of men left to fight, and for those left behind the departures frequently spawned hardship. Residents of plantations generally suffered the least direct ramifications. While the absence of young males created emotional vacuums, daily operations usually continued much as before because of slave labor. On small farms, however, the loss of one man was often a devastating blow. Running a small farm was always a struggle, but without able-bodied men to help, wives, children, and other family members often had more than they could do to get crops planted and harvested and tend to basic upkeep and chores.

A farm wife's letter to her husband, a Confederate soldier stationed in Florida, expressed the plight of many: "I have no corn, nor no meal, nor any way of getting of it.... I want you to send sum corn soon or fetch it." She pleaded, "Let your captain read this."

The elation stirred by early battlefield victories ebbed as casualty lists lengthened, with nearly everyone suffering the death of a family member or friend in the war. People in the Fort Benning area also faced increasing challenges because of the tightening Union naval blockade of the port of Apalachicola, Florida.

At first, the blockade attempt to cut off the flow of goods to and from the South was largely inconsequential because there were too few ships available to guard a huge area. The Union navy had only 42 vessels to patrol some 3,500 miles of Confederate coast from Virginia to the Rio Grande River in Texas, according to historian Maxine Turner. For a time, growers continued to send cotton 300 miles from Columbus down the Chattahoochee River, into the Apalachicola River, and then to the harbor at Apalachicola. There the bales were unloaded from the river steamboats and hoisted onto oceangoing sailing vessels - the blockade runners.

One of the Union's first strategies to bottle up shipping along the Gulf Coast was to station blockade vessels near Apalachicola, chosen for its commercial significance. Two Union naval vessels appeared off Apalachicola within two months of the first cannon fire in April 1861 at Fort Sumter near Charleston, South Carolina. But the ships were ill-chosen for the task. They had deep hulls for stability in stormy seas, making them too big to navigate safely into the shallows of Apalachicola Bay. They were forced to hug close to islands ringing the bay - St. Vincent's, St. George's, and Dog Islands. The islands, however, gave an advantage to the Union because they formed a partial barrier to blockade runners. Ships had to pass through channels leading from the Gulf of Mexico between the islands or between one of the islands and the mainland to leave or enter Apalachicola's port. Early attempts by both Union and Confederate forces to control the port of Apalachicola were ineffectual, bordering on the comical.

For the Union, the effort started auspiciously enough. Within 100 days of arriving in the area, Union patrols captured their first quarry. On August 26, 1861, sailors lowered five small boats from the two Union blockade ships and headed into Apalachicola harbor where they seized a suspected blockade runner, the oceangoing vessel, the Finland.

The sailors worked all night to prepare the ship for towing out of the harbor and into the custody of the Union blockade ships. Finally, at dawn, they began towing the Finland into the bay. But the sailors, unfamiliar with the area and battling unfavorable winds and tides, soon ran the ship aground on a sand bar adjacent to St. Vincent's Island. The Finland was stranded like a beached whale about four miles from the protection of the nearest Union blockade ship, anchored in deeper water.

Forty Union sailors remained with the Finland, trying to float it free. Again they worked feverishly throughout the night. As the sun rose, they noticed a steamboat, towing an ocean-sailing schooner, apparently heading into Apalachicola's port. Suddenly, the steamer switched directions, sailing straight for the Finland and the Union sailors trying to free the ship. The sailors soon realized that both the steamboat and the trailing schooner were Confederate vessels. Nine local militia members, armed with rifles, stood aboard the schooner, poised and ready to fire.

The unprotected Union sailors had no choice but to flee. The big guns of the blockade ships were too far away to help, and their captains couldn't risk sailing into the shallows. The Union sailors set the Finland on fire before scrambling into their boats, with the Confederate militia shooting at them. The sounds of gunfire ricocheted across the bay as the Union sailors rowed furiously away.

The Finland was engulfed in flames by the time the Confederates stormed ashore. Some of the soldiers braved the heat and fire to recover lifeboats and a few other items, but the vessel and nearly everything aboard was burned. Soon, all that was left was a charred husk. The Union sailors escaped without a single casualty. Damaged pride was their only wound.

The Confederates suffered an even worse debacle of ineptitude. A group of militia stationed in Apalachicola decided they should evacuate, fearing that if they stayed the Union blockade ships might attempt to bombard the town with cannon fire.

The militia crowded onto a flat-bottom boat and used poles to push into the Apalachicola River, intending to travel upstream only a short distance. Everything went according to plan until the boat reached midstream where the soldiers discovered the poles were too short to reach bottom. They could no longer control the boat, which began to float aimlessly in the current. Gradually they moved out into the bay, straight toward waiting Union blockaders. Shamefaced, the militia surrendered without firing a shot.

Apart from these incidents, for most of 1861, Confederate shipping along the Gulf Coast continued largely unimpeded. Union forces had only seven ships to patrol 1,300 miles of Florida. They captured only nine boats the first year of the war.

The blockade gradually tightened, however, as the United States steadily added more ships to the effort. Union forces also replaced the original blockaders on the outskirts of Apalachicola with ships easier to maneuver and equipped with more firepower. Union navy officers also learned how to deploy smaller boats capable of moving around in the shallow bay while the large blockade ships remained on the perimeter.

The strategy began to pay off by late 1861 when more blockade runners were captured, leading to fewer attempts by others to enter or leave Apalachicola's port. Clearly, the blockade was beginning to pinch. Some blockade runners continued to outfox the Union navy by hiding in the deep tributaries feeding the Apalachicola River north of the town. Others anchored west of Apalachicola along a less frequented portion of the Florida coast. They could skirt Union patrols more easily this way and get supplies to the town by a roundabout route. The cargos were carried over land by wagon, traveling north to a landing on the Apalachicola River near the Georgia border. From there, the cargo was loaded on a steamboat and hauled south some 90 miles to Apalachicola. Cotton stored in Apalachicola was sent back by the same circular and costly route to reach oceangoing vessels.

Eventually, some Confederate officials began losing interest in guarding Apalachicola from a possible Union attack. The blockade had diminished the port's importance. And there were just too many other places where Confederate leaders thought their soldiers were needed more desperately. Troops abandoned fortifications on St. Vincent's and St. George's Islands first and then left Apalachicola altogether.

The departing Confederate troops left behind a skeleton population of about 500 in the once bustling town. These residents lived in a nether world. Many were supporters of the Confederate cause. Nonetheless, they were loosely ruled by the United States' navy, whose ships were stationed off the coast and whose officers and sailors periodically visited Apalachicola. Most stores and other businesses closed.

By 1862, Columbus authorities grew increasingly nervous that the Union navy would dispatch a force of boats up river to invade their city. To defend against that possibility, the Confederate military sank obstructions in the Apalachicola River north of Apalachicola. This had the dual effect of limiting the possibility of an invasion and preventing any boats from traveling south to Apalachicola, unless the water was exceptionally high. Increasingly, steamboats paddled south only as far as the town of Chattahoochee, Florida, near the Georgia border, and then made a U-turn, heading either up the Flint River toward Albany, Georgia or back up the Chattahoochee River toward Columbus.

The steamboats, most commandeered by the Confederate government, still carried cotton as they had before the war, but now often carried the bales north toward Columbus. Eventually, nearly all cotton grown in the Fort Benning area ended up in Columbus mills where it was woven into cloth and fashioned into garments for the Confederate army.

Farmers and plantation owners still considered cotton an essential crop, although less important than before the war. Now they grew more corn and other produce to feed the seemingly insatiable hunger of the Confederate army. Some planted sweet potatoes and peanuts between corn rows to increase the yields of every acre. They also planted more land in wheat. Farmers sent their crops by steamboat or wagon to Columbus where the produce was shipped by rail north to the troops. Turpentine, made from tree sap collected in the Fort Benning area, also rarely went south by steamboat anymore. Instead, the turpentine stayed in Columbus for use by local industries. The Fort Benning area, particularly Russell County, Alabama, served as a major supplier of timber, especially important to the naval ship building industry which became important in Columbus.

Steamboats that formerly transported society's most affluent passengers in well-appointed cabins often became troop carriers. Some of the soldiers traveled to the site of old Fort Mitchell, which became an early training center for Confederate forces. Steamboats also shuttled manufacturing supplies and equipment back and forth between Columbus and small production centers at Eufaula, Alabama and Saffold, Georgia, both south of Fort Benning. Columbus had become an industrial dynamo, the second most prolific producer of clothes, after Richmond, Virginia, in the entire Confederacy. Eagle Mill, the largest facility in the area, produced some 17,000 yards of cloth per day. Columbus also produced more shoes than any other city in the South and was the largest manufacturer of swords.

Columbus plants also manufactured army uniforms, rain gear, hats, gun cartridges, pistols, rifles, artillery shells, cannons, and other equipment and supplies in massive quantities for the Confederate army. Many of the factory workers were farmers who once lived in rural areas nearby. Perhaps half the work force, however, was made up of slaves.

There were other changes altering life all along the Chattahoochee. Because of the blockade, everyone, even wealthy planters, had to economize and scrimp on purchases once considered commonplace. Prices skyrocketed for scarce goods such as coffee, sugar, and salt. Luxury items became virtually unavailable. Before the war, steamboats carried imported cigars, brandy, and rich fabrics north from Apalachicola. Eventually, only salt, packaged in Florida, and a few other items came from that far south. Salt was critical for preserving meat, both for local residents and the armies, in the days before refrigeration.

For farmers, the struggle to survive became increasingly hard, and the blockade was not the only cause. Taxes rose, as the war grew more costly. The impact of rising taxes, higher prices, and widespread shortages on the area that eventually became Fort Benning was dramatic. Hard currency grew scarce. Customers who once bought clothes from local merchants now sewed their own. They learned to mix fabric dyes from materials close at hand-using poke berries to produce red, hickory tree bark for green, and walnut hulls for brown. Like the Indians before them, people were using more wild plants to concoct homemade medicines and other essentials. Seeds from dogwood trees, containing chemicals similar to those in quinine, became medicines for quelling fevers. Corn cob ash was transformed into bicarbonate of soda, and wood ash, mixed with lard, became homemade soap.

Women on plantations organized work parties where they darned socks and made other garments for the troops. There were also countless charity drives to collect spare metal, from belt buckles to church bells, to supply Columbus industries.

A common assumption often repeated was that life along the Chattahoochee would improve dramatically for everyone if only the blockade of Apalachicola could be broken. There were two serious attempts. The first came in 1863 and depended upon the new gun ship, the Chattahoochee.

The vessel was a novelty on the river. Built mostly at Saffold, Georgia, a landing in Early County more than 100 miles south of Columbus, the Chattahoochee was a steamboat with sails that could be raised on three different masts. Built for the open seas, the steamboat's masts and sails folded away out of sight so that the vessel could serve as a hard-to-spot blockade runner. Unlike traditional steamboats propelled by a large water wheel, the Chattahoochee had two propellers and two separate engines to drive them. About 130 feet long, the steamboat was also heavily armed with six cannons.

Confederate Lieutenant John Julius Guthrie was in command when the big boat steamed south into Florida. It was May 26, 1863.

Guthrie hoped that the river was high enough from winter and spring rains for the vessel to float safely over the obstructions deliberately placed in the water earlier by the Confederate military. If he could get by the obstacles, Guthrie planned to steam boldly into Apalachicola Bay and attack the Union ships blockading the harbor.

The boat traveled about 28 miles, reaching deep into the Florida panhandle, more than a third of the distance from the Georgia border to Apalachicola. Then it encountered shallow water at Blountstown Bar. Guthrie issued the order to drop anchor. They would wait in place through the night in hopes that by morning the river would rise enough to allow them to continue.

But morning brought no help. The Chattahoochee would have to wait until conditions improved and try another time. A discouraged Guthrie told his crew to prepare to depart. They would weigh anchor, then turn around and head back up river. The captain issued the final order to leave at about ten in the morning.

Crew members in the engine room began arguing about how much water was still in the boilers that supplied steam to power the engines. A temperature gauge had been malfunctioning since the day before and apparently was one source of the dispute. The chief engineer, Henry Fagan, was in bed, suffering from a fever. A man with plenty of river experience, he sensed something was wrong because the big engines were taking too long to kick into action.

Fagan apparently heard the argument between crewmen and hurried to the engine room to investigate. About the same time, the ship's pilot, William Bilbro, apparently fired up the small engine that pumped water into the boilers.

Just as Fagan, the chief engineer, began descending the stairs into the engine room, fresh water began pouring into the boilers. Without warning, there was a massive explosion. Both Fagan and Bilbro were killed, along with a number of others.

Pandemonium erupted as sailors ran this way and that, some hideously scalded by the hot water. There were groans of pain and shouts that the ship's magazine, a storage room for large amounts of ammunition, would likely explode. Sailors leaped over board trying to escape the expected blast and frantically swam for shore. In the panic, three drowned.

The ship's doctor moved quickly along the deck, attending the wounded. Guthrie, the captain, was also active on the deck, administering baptism to the dying when the boat began to sink. He ordered sailors to flood the magazine to prevent an explosion. Then he commanded everyone to abandon ship.

The crew worked furiously to ferry the dead, the dying, and the injured across the river and onto shore. Bodies and injured men were strewn out on the river bank as if a deadly tide had washed them ashore.

Storm clouds started pelting the survivors with rain, and the injured, some writhing in pain, spent hours lying in the mud. Finally, about midnight, more than 12 hours after the accident, the steamship William H. Young arrived to begin transporting victims. Some of the injured, however, weren't picked up until the next day, almost 24 hours after the accident, during which rain continued to fall virtually nonstop. It took five days before the victims reached Columbus and better medical treatment, according to historian Maxine Turner.

The disaster weighed heavily on people living along the river as the news spread and funerals were held. In all, 18 sailors died. Most of the ship officers were killed or wounded.

All plans to attack the blockaders, who were squeezing the flow of goods into the area like a tourniquet, were put on hold.

Chapter 16: Word Comes Too Late

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