Santa Rosa Island was a Civil War engagement fought in Florida, 1861. It was a Union victory.
After midnight on October 9, Brig. Gen. Richard Anderson crossed from the mainland to Santa Rosa Island with 1,200 men in two small steamers to surprise Union camps and capture Fort Pickens. He landed on the north beach about four miles east of Fort Pickens and divided his command into three columns. After proceeding about three miles, the Confederates surprised the 6th Regiment, New York Volunteers, in its camp and routed the regiment. Gen. Anderson then adopted a defensive stance to entice the Federals to leave the fort and attack. Receiving reinforcements, Col. Harvey Brown sallied against the Confederates, who reembarked and returned to the mainland.
On October 9, 1861, Confederate forces made a failed bid to seize Fort Pickens, a Union stronghold on Santa Rosa Island, Florida, in what became known as the Battle of Santa Rosa Island.
Under cover of darkness in the early hours of October 9, Brig. Gen. Richard Anderson ferried 1,200 men across from the mainland to Santa Rosa Island aboard two small steamers, hoping to catch Union forces at Camp Brown off guard and, conditions permitting, seize Fort Pickens itself. The landing point lay on the north beach roughly four miles east of the fort, and once ashore, Anderson split his force into three separate columns. Marching inland for about three miles, the Confederates fell upon the 6th Regiment, New York Volunteers, catching the unit completely unprepared and driving it from Camp Brown in disorder. Rather than pressing the advantage, Anderson chose to hold a defensive position, hoping this would lure the garrison out of the fort and into open combat. Col. Harvey Brown, once reinforcements arrived, obliged by launching a counterattack, forcing the Confederates to withdraw to their boats and cross back to the mainland.
Federal casualties totaled 14 dead, 29 wounded, and 24 either captured or unaccounted for. On the Confederate side, General Braxton Bragg and Lieutenant Hamel, who held command at Pensacola, put their own losses at "30 or 40 killed and wounded" in their account, though an unverified Confederate newspaper account, uncovered several days later by Lieut. Seeley, claimed casualties as high as 175, a figure almost certainly inflated beyond reality. Among the captured was Maj. Israel Vogdes of the 1st artillery, while Anderson himself sustained serious wounds fighting for the Confederacy. Although the raiders succeeded in largely destroying Camp Brown, the very target they had set out to eliminate, they nonetheless found themselves pushed back from the island entirely and had to concede the engagement as lost. Weeks afterward, on November 22 and 23, Union artillery positioned across the bay unleashed a punishing barrage of 5,000 rounds, leveling both Fort McRee and the Pensacola Navy Yard.
Today, Fort Pickens along with the ground where the fighting occurred remains protected as part of the Gulf Islands National Seashore.
In December 1861, New River County, Florida took a new name, Bradford County, honoring Confederate Captain Richard Bradford, who died in the fighting. Bradford held the distinction of being the first officer from Florida to lose his life in the Civil War.
This page covers Santa Rosa Island. A full Aubrey report for the area pulls together this battle alongside historic sites, land records, and everything else the record holds within a few miles:
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