Department of Key West

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Department of Key West, was a military department of the Union Army created in February 1862 from the Department of Florida. It had command over the posts that were newly captured by “Expeditionary Corps” combined of Army and Navy units under Brigadier General Thomas W. Sherman and Flag Officer Samuel Francis Du Pont. These were posts at Fernandina, St. Augustine and the forces investing Fort Pulaski and blockading the Savannah River on Tybee Island at the mouth of the river.

Union Army Land force that fought for the Union during the American Civil War

During the American Civil War, the Union Army referred to the United States Army, the land force that fought to preserve the Union of the collective states. Also known as the Federal Army, it proved essential to the preservation of the United States of America as a working, viable republic.

Department of Florida, was the military administrative department established by the Union Army. The Department of Florida was established on April 13, 1861 to defend and administer the few remaining Federal installations remaining in Florida. Following the secession of Florida in January 1861, Florida troops seized most Federal property in the state with the exceptions of Fort Zachary Taylor at Key West and Fort Pickens at Pensacola. The Union Navy would use the port of Key West to establish a blockade of the Atlantic and Eastern Gulf coasts of the Confederacy, with the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron and the East Gulf Blockading Squadron.

Thomas W. Sherman American Union Army brigadier general

Thomas West Sherman was a United States Army officer with service during the Mexican–American War and the American Civil War. While some contemporaries mistakenly identified him as the brother of the more famous General William T. Sherman, modern scholarship notes that the two were not closely related.

Contents

This department was merged into the Department of the South on March 15, 1862, before the capture of Fort Pulaski on April 11, 1862.

The Department of the South was a military department of the United States Army that existed in several iterations in the 19th century.

Commander

John Milton Brannan Union army general

John Milton Brannan was a career American Army officer who served in the Mexican–American War and as a Union general in the American Civil War, in command of the Department of Key West in Florida and assigned to Fort Zachary Taylor. His first wife was the daughter of Colonel Ichabod Crane; she mysteriously disappeared after taking a ferry from Staten Island to lower Manhattan and was presumed to have been murdered.

Posts of the Department of Key West

Fort Clinch place in Florida listed on National Register of Historic Places

Fort Clinch is a 19th-century masonry coastal fortification, built as part of the Third System of seacoast defense conceived by the United States. It is located on a peninsula near the northernmost point of Amelia Island in Nassau County, Florida. The fort lies to the northeast of Fernandina Beach at the entrance to the Cumberland Sound (Florida), in the northeast part of the state. Today it is included within the boundaries of Fort Clinch State Park.

St. Augustine, Florida City in Florida, United States

St. Augustine is a city in the Southeastern United States, on the Atlantic coast of northeastern Florida. Founded in 1565 by Spanish explorers, it is the oldest continuously inhabited European-established settlement within the borders of the continental United States.

Georgia (U.S. state) State of the United States of America

Georgia is a state in the Southeastern United States. It began as a British colony in 1733, the last and southernmost of the original Thirteen Colonies to be established. Named after King George II of Great Britain, the Province of Georgia covered the area from South Carolina south to Spanish Florida and west to French Louisiana at the Mississippi River. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788. In 1802–1804, western Georgia was split to the Mississippi Territory, which later split to form Alabama with part of former West Florida in 1819. Georgia declared its secession from the Union on January 19, 1861, and was one of the original seven Confederate states. It was the last state to be restored to the Union, on July 15, 1870. Georgia is the 24th largest and the 8th most populous of the 50 United States. From 2007 to 2008, 14 of Georgia's counties ranked among the nation's 100 fastest-growing, second only to Texas. Georgia is known as the Peach State and the Empire State of the South. Atlanta, the state's capital and most populous city, has been named a global city. Atlanta's metropolitan area contains about 55% of the population of the entire state.

Notes

  1. ↑ Frederick H. Dyer, A Compendium of the War of the Rebellion (New York: T. Yoseloff, 1959; originally published Des Moines, IA: The Dyer Pub. Co., 1908), Vol. 1, pp. 256,364

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References

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