Throughout 2015 we will be looking back at the end of the Civil War in Florida. Throughout much of the war, union forces occupied Pensacola and Key West the two most strategic locations in the state. But the capital, Tallahassee which was the size of a large village at the time was never captured and for much of the war, Florida provided a great amount of the food and armory for the Confederate forces.
Our look back will include the Battle of Natural Bridge and the defense of Tallahassee, the flight of Confederate officials, the beginning of reconstruction and the suicide of Governor John Milton (pictured) who said in his farewell note to the state:
“that Yankees have developed a character so odious that death would be preferable to reunion with them. Death would be preferable to reunion”
It is important that when we look back at these historical events we remember that those figures that were involved were women and men of their times. In retrospect, most figures of that era were conservatives, racists and far from worldly or cultured by our contemporary standard. But knowing the state’s history and the events that shaped Florida at the end of the war is critical to understand the development of our state throughout the rest of the 19th century.
The Florida Squeeze 
We should BE so fortunate to have a repeat of the FL governor committing suicide!! This romanticizing of the Confederate cause and the promotion of scoffing at the pre-eminence of Federal law over state law (euphemistically dubbed “states’ rights”) still lives in the backwaters of North Florida, in particular! The persistence of this attitude has held the South back, and kept it a second-class region and has been a big part of the political polarization of our country. The yahoos from the South in Congress have been responsible for the failure to accomplish anything the last two sessions! Not that it will do any good, but I’ll say it anyway: YOU LOST, get over it, and the Federal government’s authority is pre-eminent over your petty provincial racism and classism! You are a sad anachronism!
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Francis Eppes – Thomas Jefferson’s Grandson, was a plantation owner in Leon County, having moed there with his slaves in the 1820’s. He was also Mayor of Tallahassee and started what became FSU. After the war, having lost his slaves, he moved to Orlando and became a citrus farmer and Orange County’s first clerk of the Courts. The house he built still stands on the West Shoire of Lake PineLoch – south of town. Montecello Florida is basically where his north Florida home was and got its name for obvious reasons.
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I wish this Governor would consider doing the same.
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This is an unnecessary statement but I suppose you felt like you had to say it to justify writing about history?: “In retrospect, most figures of that era were conservatives, racists and far from worldly or cultured by our contemporary standard.”
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