Florida’s Cow Cavalry
The Cowmen Who Became Soldiers to Keep an Army Fed
Soldiers elsewhere ate because Florida cattlemen got the beef to them.
When Vicksburg fell in July 1863, the Union took the Mississippi River and cut off one of the Confederacy’s main sources of beef. Confederate quartermasters turned to Florida, the least populous Confederate state, where hundreds of thousands of half-wild cattle roamed the peninsula. The cowhunters, ranchers and drovers who did the job became known as the Cow Cavalry.
A Captain’s Letter to Richmond
The unit owed its existence to Captain James McKay, a Tampa cattle shipper and former ship captain who had been appointed a Confederate commissary agent. According to a study of the Tampa Robles family that cites the letter, McKay wrote in March 1864 to Secretary of War James Seddon proposing a unit to gather Florida’s herds, guard them from Union raids and drive them north. The proposal was approved, and the result was the 1st Florida Special Cavalry Battalion, also called the Cattle Guard Battalion.
Command went to Charles J. Munnerlyn, a Georgia lawyer and former Confederate congressman. The battalion grew to nine companies and roughly nine hundred men. One company, led by Captain John T. Lesley, formed at Ichepucksassa, in the Cork area of today’s Plant City. The battalion patrolled a line about three hundred miles long, from upper Lafayette County to the Lake Okeechobee region.
Who Rode in the Cow Cavalry
Many of the men were the kind the regular army did not want: too young, or too old, for the front. They did not need infantry drill. They needed men who could read cattle, ride for days and improvise, and Florida’s cowhunting families had passed those skills down for generations. Captain Francis A. Hendry led a company and later became one of South Florida’s leading ranchers and the namesake of Hendry County. James McKay Jr. led another.
Protecting the Herds
Union naval outposts launched raids inland to capture or scatter cattle, and the Union also targeted salt works, since salt was needed to preserve meat. The battalion kept beef moving north for more than a year, driving herds to railheads in Georgia and South Carolina and sometimes as far as Charleston. Fort Meade on the Peace River served as a key staging point. Historians caution against overstating the result: with few railroads and drives of three to four hundred miles, Florida’s beef never fully met the Confederacy’s expectations.
The Battle of Fort Myers
Fort Myers, abandoned in 1858 after the Seminole Wars, was reoccupied by Union troops in December 1863, though some accounts say January 1864. It became a refuge for escaped enslaved people, Unionists and Confederate deserters, at times holding more than four hundred people. The garrison included the Union 2nd Florida Cavalry, a company from New York and companies of the 2nd U.S. Colored Infantry.
In February 1865 about 275 men from three companies of the battalion, under Major William Footman, advanced on the fort partly to end its threat to Confederate cattle operations. They demanded surrender on February 20, the date given by the state historical marker and by historian Irvin Solomon. Union Captain James Doyle refused, and after hours of artillery and musket fire the attack was repelled with light casualties. The engagement is often called the southernmost land battle of the Civil War, a claim sometimes disputed because of Palmito Ranch, Texas.
What the Cow Cavalry Left Behind
The unit fought no battle remembered beside Gettysburg, and most general histories omit it. Within Florida it is remembered for the supply line it protected. Markers in Plant City and at Hillsborough County Veterans Memorial Park have commemorated the battalion. The Confederate victory at Olustee in February 1864 helped keep open the roads and rail lines the battalion later depended on.
Quick Facts
Official name
1st Florida Special Cavalry Battalion (Cattle Guard Battalion)
Formed
Spring 1864, after McKay’s March 1864 proposal
Commander
Charles J. Munnerlyn
Size
Nine companies, roughly 900 men
Patrol line
About 300 miles, from Lafayette County to Lake Okeechobee
Who served
Cattlemen and cowhunters, many too young or too old for regular service
Mission
Gather and guard cattle and drive them north to Confederate armies
Cattle, 1860 census
About 388,060 head in Florida
Key engagement
Fort Myers, February 20, 1865
Did You Know?
- The unit had two names, the Cow Cavalry and the Cattle Guard Battalion, for the same battalion.
- At times more than four hundred people sheltered inside Fort Myers.
- Captain Francis A. Hendry, who led a company, is the namesake of Hendry County.
Vocabulary
Commissary: the department that supplies an army with food.
Drover: a person who drives herds of cattle over long distances.
Railhead: the end of a railway line, where goods are loaded for shipment.
Discussion Questions
1. Why were cowhunters better suited to this job than regular infantry?
2. Why do historians caution against overstating how much beef Florida supplied?
Related Articles
- FLH-0099 — The Battle of Olustee
- FLH-0097 — Florida During the Civil War
- FLH-0101 — Salt Makers of the Gulf Coast
- FLH-0045 — Captain James McKay and the Cuba Cattle Trade
- FLH-0044 — Jacob Summerlin: The Rise of Florida’s Cattle Kingdom
- FLH-0305 — Before Texas: Florida’s First Cattle Empire
- FLH-0164 — Cow Hunters and Cattle Traders
- FLH-0271 — Army Beef Contracts with Florida Cattlemen
Sources
Solomon, Irvin D. “Southern Extremities: The Significance of Fort Myers in the Civil War.” Florida Historical Quarterly 72, no. 2 (1993).
Dillon, Rodney E., Jr. “The Battle of Fort Myers.” Tampa Bay History 5, no. 2 (1983).
Lucibello, Karen E. “The Robles Family During the Civil War in Tampa.” Master’s thesis, University of South Florida.
Kilkelly, Daniel. “The Cow Cavalry.” Tampa Historical Society. tampahistorical.org
Historical Marker Database. Cow Cavalry and Fort Myers markers (supplementary). hmdb.org
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