The Battle of Marianna was a small but significant engagement on September 27, 1864, in the panhandle of Florida during the American Civil War. The Union destruction against Confederates and militia defending the town of Marianna was the culmination of a substantial Federal cavalry raid into northwestern Florida. Ultimately, the Union force withdrew to Fort Barrancas.
Marianna, the home of Florida's ardent secessionist Civil War governor, John Milton, was an important supply depot and recruiting/mustering center for Confederate militia and reserves. By late 1864, it was the largest northwest Florida town besides Tallahassee still in Confederate hands. A July 1864 raid from St. Andrews revealed the region's potential vulnerability to a larger expedition.
On September 18, 1864, a mounted column of 700 Union troops under Brig. Gen. Alexander Asboth set out from Fort Barrancas near the Federal-occupied city of Pensacola and rode eastward on a raid through northwest Florida. The thinly spread local Florida cavalry was unable to provide adequate warning of the size, location, and approach of the raiders. This left regional Confederate commander Col. Alexander B. Montgomery guessing as to the Federal objective and strength, leading to critical delays in calling up reserves and telegraphing for assistance in containing the raiders.
As the raid progressed, the Union cavalry fanned out, destroying or confiscating local foodstuffs and supplies. The Federal troopers captured or scattered a small, mixed company of militia/volunteer Confederate cavalry at Eucheeana on September 23. To disguise his intentions, Asboth had a detachment destroy Douglas' Ferry on the Choctawhatchee River, closing passage along the direct road to Marianna. He then proceeded along an alternate route that would take his expedition northwest of Marianna. On September 26, 1864, his mounted troopers skirmished with Capt. Alexander Godwin's cavalry around Campbellton, less than twenty miles from Marianna. General Asboth rested his weary men in preparation for a fight at Marianna the next day.
Still, Colonel Montgomery delayed coalescing his forces and calling out the Marianna home guard. Campbellton was a crossroads, so the Federals could still move into Georgia or Alabama, into the richest agricultural region in northwest Florida or back southeast toward Marianna. In attempting to picket each potential route of advance with his small force, Montgomery was unable to draw his meager reserves together in strong defense of any of them.
On the morning of September 27, the Federal riders proceeded toward Marianna. When they passed the Old Fort crossroads, Montgomery finally could be certain of their destination. He called out the homeguard and assembled what reserves were already on hand. Montgomery's cavalry contested the crossing of Hopkins' Branch, 3 miles (4.8 km) from Marianna with the intention of falling back into town via an old bypass (now Kelson Avenue) rather than the main road.
The American Civil War (1861–1865) was the deadliest conflict in American history, killing an estimated 620,000 to 750,000 soldiers and an unknown number of civilians. The Confederate States of America, formed by eleven seceding Southern states, faced the Union in four years of warfare across 23 states and territories. Major engagements included First and Second Bull Run, Antietam (the bloodiest single day in American history, September 17, 1862), Chancellorsville, Gettysburg (July 1–3, 1863), Vicksburg (surrendered July 4, 1863), and Sherman's March through Georgia and the Carolinas (1864–1865). President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, transforming the war's stated purpose to include the abolition of slavery and enabling the enlistment of approximately 180,000 Black men in the United States Colored Troops. Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. The war resolved the question of secession and ended American slavery, though Reconstruction would face sustained resistance in its attempt to secure civil rights for formerly enslaved people.
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