Skirmish, Vernon

On September 28, 1864, near Vernon, Florida, a small clash unfolded that history remembers as the Battle of Vernon, one of the lesser engagements of the Civil War. It followed by a single day the far larger fight at Marianna, and it began when a company of Home Guard soldiers from Vernon set out to support their Confederate allies there. What these Southern troops did not realize was that their path led directly into the retreating Union column commanded by Brigadier General Alexander Asboth, then heading back toward the main Federal base at Pensacola after his triumph at Marianna. The two sides crossed paths on a wooden bridge spanning Hard Labor Creek in Washington County. When ordered by Union forces to scatter, the vastly outnumbered Floridians instead stood their ground, only to be swiftly overwhelmed, and the majority of them ended up captured.

Prelude

Governor John Milton called for Home Guard units to be organized across Florida's counties during the summer of 1864. Washington County, tucked away in the Panhandle, could offer little in the way of able-bodied fighters, since most men fit for duty were already serving the Confederacy, and those remaining were wounded, elderly, or too young to bear arms. Matters were made worse by the fact that several residents, including the man serving as county Sheriff, had already gone over to the Federal side. Out of a pool of scarcely thirty men, the Home Guard settled on Second Lieutenant W.B. Jones as their commander. Jones had served with the 6th Florida Infantry until wounds suffered in Tennessee ended his active service. When word reached Confederate officers in Mariana that Federal troops were approaching, they dispatched riders to surrounding towns and villages, pleading for reinforcements to arrive without delay.

That call for help never reached Jones until after the fighting at Marianna was already over. Nevertheless, he remained set on lending whatever aid he could to his fellow soldiers. He gathered his men and marched through Vernon, compelling every man he found there, no matter his age, to join his ranks. Even those "considerably older than sixty" found themselves handed rifles and pulled into the column. By the morning of the 28th, Jones had gathered roughly fifty men on horseback.

At the same time, a Federal force numbering more than 700 pulled out of Marianna in the pre-dawn hours of April 28th, heading back toward Pensacola. They brought with them a substantial haul of seized cattle, horses, and mules, along with more than 600 freed slaves. Around midday, the column arrived at Orange Hill in Washington County, where soldiers set fire to the barns and outbuildings on the Everett Plantation before pausing to eat. Once they broke from their meal, the troops pressed onward until they came upon a wooden bridge crossing Hard Labor Creek, situated some five miles northeast of Vernon.

The battle

Neither side expected to encounter the other, yet both columns arrived at the bridge from opposite banks of the creek at the same moment. For several tense minutes neither force moved, each waiting to see who would act first. It was the Federal advance guard, soldiers of the 1st Florida Cavalry (US), who broke the silence by calling on Captain Jones and his men to lay down their arms. Local tradition holds that Stephen Pierce, a Confederate who had served with the 4th Florida Infantry before being sent home disabled from duty in Tennessee, hurled curses and insults at the Union men. The Federals answered by unleashing a volley at the Confederates and then rushing the bridge. Storytellers long claimed that furious Union soldiers dragged Pierce behind a gallberry bush and killed him there, though newer investigation points to his death coming instead during that first burst of gunfire.

Facing odds greater than ten to one, the Confederates broke apart and fled in disorder toward Vernon, and Federal riders pursuing them captured many along the way. A handful managed to break free, later telling how the Union cavalrymen pursued them the entire distance back to Vernon while firing continuously. Remarkably, the fight claimed only one life and left just one man wounded, both losses coming from Jones' Home Guard unit.

Aftermath

After capture, the prisoners were shipped out to Ship Island, Mississippi, before being transferred to the Federal prison camp in Elmira, New York, where five of them would perish. Captain Jones lived through his time as a captive, returning home "badly enfeebled," though he went on to live another thirty years.

In Vernon itself, Federal forces paused only briefly to rest once the fighting ended before pushing on toward Pensacola that same day. Confederate soldiers drawn from Florida and neighboring Georgia gave chase to Asboth's withdrawing column, but they could not close the distance before it reached Union lines.

These days, the Battle of Vernon has faded into obscurity, much like countless other small clashes that occurred across the country during the war, remembered now mainly by those who live in the area.