Fort Barancas

Description of the Specimens and History of the Site

fl;1861.095;sa

Flora Specimens. Unidentified, from Fort Barrancas, Pensacola, Florida. Taken “from near the bridge to the old Spanish Fort San Carlos,” collected mid-20th century, c.e. (Farrow expedition)

In spite of the assertions of numerous authorities such as H. M. Clarkson, a Confederate army surgeon who based his accounts on “national and South Carolina State records and the testimony of eyewitnesses yet living [in 1913],” the first shots of the Civil War were not fired at Fort Sumpter, South Carolina, (12 April 1861) nor was this sanguinary chapter of our nation’s history initiated with the so-called Cadet’s firing upon the Star of the West in Charleston harbor (9 January, 1861). For one day earlier, in an unrelated action, a group of perhaps 20 secessionists, perhaps armed, approached the old Spanish Fort San Carlos, where up to that time powder had been stored. Although adjacent to the barracks, it was presumed unoccupied and therefore an easy capture. These unknown troops, however, were challenged to respond to a password, and failing this they were dispersed with the first shots of the war, late in the night of the 8th of January, 1861. Though they cannot be considered confederate soldiers in the formal sense—Florida would only secede from the Union on 10 January and the Provisional Constitution of the Confederacy was adopted only on 8 February—this action is one of the pivotal steps in the incremental slipping of our country into the dissolution of civil war.

The flora specimens are small, fibrous and contain some sand. One is a husk, or pod for some type of seed. Unidentified.