Weeellll, now I'm on my 2nd cup of coffee, I can almost think. Part of my brain is still on 'hold'.
At first glance, Florida wouldn't seem all that big a deal at that period in time. Like I said, my ancestors were used to walking to the square to see another flag fly and then went back to whatever it was they were doing. From the Lincoln Papers and other places, I get a different picture. Lincoln thought it would be a pretty good place to start the shooting match. Guess he forgot to factor in the amount of time it took to sail around the Keys and back up the Gulf so it was Sumter, not Pickens got the spot in the history books. Theough there were a couple of shots fired before Sumter by a few hours.

At the outset, when the army of the Confederate States was getting its act together, a whole bunch of troops were trained here at Ft Barrancas. There'd been some talking, and probably finger waving and a bit of show of force before Slemmer took the Union suits to Pickens. If you don't know the area, it's like a triangle. Pickens is SE at the Mouth of Pensacola Pass, Ft McRee was SW across the Pass on Fosters Point, and Barrancas on what is now the Naval Air Station and it faced the Pass. I cannot imagine what they went through, either army. It was hot, sandy, humid, miserable. Skeeters big as baby helicopters and stagnant water all over the place. I hate going there during the summer just to walk around. No air flow on the parade ground.

In spite of it all Bragg trained those troops for the CSA and did a very good job. He may have bungled almost anything else he did, but training troops was where his talent showed up. Then it went away not to be seen again.

Florida was kind of important because of its ability to produce food or other needed things like Salt or Saltpeter. Lumber for ships, though as it turned out, the CS Navy wasn't able to build as many as they wished. One of Florida's largest contributions was cattle. We are still 'cattle' country in spite of Disney World.
No, we don't have Longhorns, we had some smaller ones, but they were driven up to Georgia to feed the army. We also were still able to produce truck crops and when trains were still running, the veggies were toted to the troops later they went by wagon. Cotton still got planted. At least in the early part of the war.

We also had a whole lot of very good men in the fight. Many didn't come home. We had some pretty good leaders too. I guess the one who held the higher title was Stephen R. Mallory, a homie here, and we had Lang and Perry. Others too. I guess we are one of those 'sleeper' states. Don't get much mention when they talk of the "Old South" but we were very much a part of it, sort of like the cousin you don't see until you want something.

Pam