Glory (45 page)

July 21: First Manassas, or the First Battle of Bull Run, Virginia—both sides get their first real taste of battle. Southern troops are drawn from throughout the states, including Florida. Already, the state, which had been so eager to secede, sees her sons being shipped northward to fight and her coast being left to its own defenses by a government with different priorities.

November: Robert E. Lee inspects coastal defenses as far south as Fernandina and decides the major ports of Charleston, Savannah, and Brunswick are to be defended, adding later that the small force posted at St. Augustine was like an invitation to attack.

1862

February: Florida’s Governor Milton publicly states his despair for Florida citizens as more of the state’s troops are ordered north after Grant captures two major Confederate strongholds in Tennessee.

February 28: A fleet of twenty-six Federal ships sets sail to occupy Fernandina, Jacksonville, and St. Augustine.

March 8: St. Augustine surrenders, and though Jacksonville and other points north and south along the coast will change hands several times during the war, St. Augustine will remain in Union hands. The St. Johns River becomes a ribbon of guerilla troop movement for both sides. Many Floridians begin to despair of “East Florida,” fearing that the fickle populace has all turned Unionist.

March 8: Under the command of Franklin Buchanan, the
CSS Virginia,
formerly the scuttled Union ship
Merrimac,
sailed into Hampton Roads to battle the Union ships blockading the channel. She devastates Federal ships until the arrival of the poorly prepared and leaking Federal entry into the “ironclad” fray, the
USS Monitor.
The historic battle of the ironclads ensues. Neither ship emerged a clear victor; the long-term advantage went to the Union since the Confederacy was then unable to break the blockade when it had appeared, at first, that the
Virginia
might have sailed all the way to devastate Washington, D.C.

April 2: Apalachicola is attacked by a Federal landing force. The town remains a no-man’s-land throughout the war.

April 6–8: Union and Confederate forces engage in the battle of Shiloh. Both claim victories. Both suffer horrible losses with over twenty thousand killed, wounded or missing.

April 25: New Orleans falls, and the Federal grip on the south becomes more of a vise.

Spring: The Federal blockade begins to tighten and much of the state becomes a no-man’s-land. Despite its rugged terrain, the length of the peninsula, and the simple difficulty of logistics, blockade runners know that they can dare Florida waterways simply because the Union can’t possibly guard the extensive coastline of the state. Florida’s contribution becomes more and more that of a breadbasket as she strips herself and provides salt, beef, smuggled supplies, and manpower to the Confederacy.

May 9: Pensacola is evacuated by the Rebs and occupied by Federal forces.

1863

May 20: Union landing party is successfully attacked by Confederates near St. Marks.

May 22: Union Flag Officer DuPont writes to his superiors with quotes that had the Union not abandoned Jacksonville, the state would have split and East Florida would have entered the war on the Union side.

Into summer: Fierce action continues in Virginia: Battle of Fair Oaks, or Seven Pines, May 31, the Seven Days Battles, May 25–June 7, the Battle of Mechanicsville, June 26, Gaines Mill, or Cold Harbor, June 27. More Florida troops leave the state to replace the men killed in action in these battles and in other engagements in Alabama, Louisiana, and along the Mississippi. Salt becomes evermore necessary: Florida has numerous salt works along the Gulf side of the state. Union ships try to find them, confiscate what they can, and destroy them.

August 30: Second Battle of Manassas, or Bull Run.

September 16–17: The Battle of Antietam, or Sharpsburg, takes place in Maryland where the “single bloodiest day of fighting” occurs.

September 23: The Preliminary text of the Emancipation Proclamation is published. It will take effect on January 1, 1863. Lincoln previously drafted the document, but waited for a Union victory to publish it; both sides claimed Antietam, but the Rebels were forced to withdraw back to Virginia.

October 5: Federals recapture Jacksonville.

December 11–15: The Battle of Fredericksburg.

December 31: The Battle of Murfreesborough, or Stones River, Tennessee.

1863

March 20: A Union landing party at St. Andrew’s Bay, Florida, is attacked and most Federals are captured or killed.

March 31: Jacksonville is evacuated by the Union forces again.

May 1–4: The Battle of Chancellorsville. Lee soundly beats Hooker, but on May 2, General Stonewall Jackson is accidently shot and mortally wounded by his own men. He dies on the tenth.

June: Southern commanders determine anew to bring the war to the Northern front. A campaign begins, which will march the Army of Northern Virginia through Virginia, Maryland, and on to Pennsylvania. In the west, the campaign along the Mississippi continues with Vicksburg under siege. In Florida, there is little action other than skirmishing and harrying attacks along the coast. More Florida boys are conscripted into the regular army. The state continues to produce cattle and salt and provide for the Confederacy.

July 1: Confederates move toward Gettysburg along the Chambersburg Pike. Four miles west of town they meet John Buford’s Union cavalry.

July 2: At Gettysburg, places like the Peach Orchard and Devil’s Den become names that live in history.

July 3: Pickett’s disastrous charge.

July 4: Lee determines to retreat to Virginia.

July 4: Vicksburg surrenders. July continues: The Union soldiers take a very long time to chase Lee. What might have been an opportunity to end the war is lost.

July 13: Draft riots in New York.

August 8: Lee attempts to resign. President Jefferson Davis rejects his resignation. August continues into fall: Renewed Union interest in Florida begins to develop as assaults on Charleston and forts in South Carolina bring recognition by the North that Florida is a hotbed for blockade runners, salt, and cattle. Union commanders in the South begin to plan a Florida campaign.

Heather Graham (b. 1953) is one of the country’s most prominent authors of romance, suspense, and historical fiction. She has been writing bestselling books for nearly three decades, publishing more than 150 novels and selling more than seventy-five million copies worldwide.

Born in Florida to an Irish mother and a Scottish father, Graham attended college at the University of South Florida, where she majored in theater arts. She spent a few years making a living onstage as a back-up vocalist and dinner theater actor, but after the birth of her third child decided to seek work that would allow her to spend more time with her family.

After early efforts writing romance and horror stories, Graham sold her first novel,
When Next We Love
(1982). She went on to write nearly two dozen contemporary romance novels.

In 1989 Graham published
Sweet Savage Eden
, which initiated the Cameron family saga, an epic six-book series that sets romantic drama amid turbulent periods of American history, such as the Civil War. She revisited the nineteenth century in
Runaway
(1994), a story of passion, deception, and murder in Florida, which spawned five sequels of its own.

In the past decade, Graham has written romantic suspense novels such as
Tall, Dark, and Deadly
(1999),
Long, Lean, and Lethal
(2000), and
Dying to Have Her
(2001), as well as supernatural fiction. In 2003’s
Haunted
she created the Harrison Investigation service, a paranormal detective organization that she spun off into four Krewe of Hunters novels in 2011.

Graham lives in Florida, where she writes, scuba dives, and spends time with her husband and five children.

Graham (left) with her sister.

Graham with her family in New Orleans. Pictured left to right: Dennis Pozzessere; Zhenia Yeretskaya Pozzessere; Derek, Shayne, and Chynna Pozzessere; Heather Graham; Jason and Bryee-Annon Pozzessere; and Jeremy Gonzalez.

Graham at a photo shoot in Key West for the promotion of the Flynn Brothers trilogy.

Graham at the haunted Myrtles plantation, Francisville, Louisiana.

Graham and the Slushpile Band playing the Memnoch the Devil Ball at the Undead Con in New Orleans, 2010.