The War That Broke Florida’s Railroad

How the Civil War Destroyed Yulee’s Greatest Achievement

It would never again operate as Yulee had designed it.

On March 2, 1862, as a Union naval squadron took possession of the harbor at Fernandina, a train pulled out of the depot carrying people fleeing the town. According to the Florida Railroad Museum, David Levy Yulee, the railroad’s president and a former United States senator, was aboard. The USS Ottawa chased the train and fired on it, and the train reached the mainland. It was, in miniature, what the war did to the railroad itself. The Florida Railroad had been finished for about a year, and it would never again operate as Yulee had designed it.

A Triumph With Little Time

The line reached Cedar Key in March 1861 and a state marker describes it as about 156 miles long. Florida had seceded on January 10, 1861, and Confederate guns opened on Fort Sumter on April 12. Yulee had been a leading advocate of secession and a defender of slavery, and the railroad he led had been built substantially by enslaved laborers, according to the Florida Railroad Museum. Within a year it was a target of Federal naval operations.

Cedar Key, January 1862

The Gulf terminus was hit first. In mid-January 1862 the USS Hatteras raided Cedar Key; sources give January 15 or about January 16. A Florida Historical Quarterly abstract by Thomas Graham describes the raid as the first major Federal naval raid on Florida shores and says its aim included seizing the terminals of the Florida Railroad. Accounts of what was destroyed vary: a state marker says the depot, while a Navy account lists the railroad wharf, several flat cars and other buildings.

The Last Train From Fernandina

Fernandina fell about seven weeks later. A report by Flag Officer Samuel F. Du Pont, dated March 4 and reprinted in the Richmond Daily Dispatch, says the Ottawa chased a departing train for two miles and fired shells at the locomotive, some of which took effect. The accounts differ on casualties. The Florida Railroad Museum says two men were killed on a flat car; a Richmond newspaper item says a shell killed two persons in a passenger car; Du Pont’s report mentions no deaths. All agree that the train escaped and that Yulee got away.

A Dispute Over the Rails

With both terminals in Union hands, Governor John Milton argued that the remaining track had little military value. The Confederacy wanted a rail link between Florida and Georgia, a line of about 49 miles from Live Oak to Lawton, Georgia, whose roadbed was largely finished by 1862 but lacked iron rail. In letters from May 30 to July 17, 1863, preserved by the State Archives of Florida, Milton urged Yulee to yield iron and said the Confederate government would pay. Yulee disputed the authority of the governor and the trustees and said the company would resist removal by legal means. Milton appealed to higher Confederate authorities, and in March 1864 Yulee obtained an injunction. Florida Memory states that the Army removed the rails under the Impressment Act after a Confederate district court overruled the state injunction in the summer of 1864. The connecting line opened in March 1865.

What Was Left

Dudley S. Johnson reports that only sixty miles of the line were usable at the war’s end and that much of the road was overgrown. A Florida State University finding aid says the terminals were destroyed and that Federal troops repaired much of the damage, a point Johnson’s article does not mention. Yulee was arrested after the war and held at Fort Pulaski, Georgia, for about nine months, according to secondary accounts. The company could not pay its bonds, and the Internal Improvement Fund’s trustees ordered the road sold in autumn 1866 to Isaac K. Roberts, acting for Edward N. Dickerson and associates, for $323,400. It was renamed the Atlantic, Gulf and West India Transit Company in 1872.

The Tragedy Behind the Dream

The conflict reached the railroad’s bridges, depots and rails, and the Confederate government treated the iron of a nearly new railroad as material for a more urgent line. The railroad had been built by enslaved laborers, and its builder defended the system that supplied that labor and supported the secession that brought the war. The wartime story cannot be separated from slavery and secession.

Quick Facts

Railroad completed

To Cedar Key in March 1861; about 156 miles (state marker)

Labor

Built substantially by enslaved laborers (Florida Railroad Museum)

Secession and war

Florida seceded January 10, 1861; Fort Sumter April 12

Cedar Key raid

USS Hatteras, mid-January 1862 (January 15 or about 16, by source)

Fernandina

Federal squadron arrived March 2, 1862; the Ottawa fired on the departing train

Milton–Yulee letters

May 30 to July 17, 1863 (State Archives of Florida)

Rail removal

Army removed rails under impressment; connecting line opened March 1865

Condition at war’s end

Only sixty usable miles (Johnson, 1968)

Sale

Autumn 1866 for $323,400 (November 1 per Johnson; October 6 per FSU finding aid)

Later name

Atlantic, Gulf and West India Transit Company, 1872

Did You Know?

* A Union gunboat chased the last train out of Fernandina and fired shells at it.

* The Confederacy took up rails from the line to complete a link between Florida and Georgia.

* Only about sixty miles of the line were usable when the war ended.

Vocabulary

Impressment: the seizing of property by the government for public use.

Injunction: a court order to stop or require an action.

Trestle: a framework that supports a railroad over low ground or water.

Discussion Questions

1. Why did Governor Milton and Yulee disagree about the rails?

2. How should accounts that disagree about casualties be handled in a history?

Related Articles

* FLH-0108 — Before Flagler: The Forgotten Senator Who Helped Build Modern Florida

* FLH-0122 — The Railroad That Almost Changed America

* FLH-0106 — A Midnight Errand at Cotton Wood

* FLH-0097 — Florida During the Civil War

Sources

Florida Memory, State Archives of Florida. “Governor John Milton vs. David Yulee, 1863” and “Florida Railroads and the Civil War.” floridamemory.com

Shofner, Jerrell H., and William Warren Rogers. “Confederate Railroad Construction: The Live Oak to Lawton Connector.” Florida Historical Quarterly 43, no. 3 (1964) (as available to this review)

Johnson, Dudley S. “The Florida Railroad after the Civil War.” Florida Historical Quarterly 47, no. 3 (1968)

Graham, Thomas. “Letters From a Journey Through the Federal Blockade, 1861–1862.” Florida Historical Quarterly 55, no. 4 (1976) (abstract only)

Florida State University Libraries. Florida Railroad Company Papers (finding aid). archives.lib.fsu.edu

Zerfas, Lewis L. “The Last Train from Fernandina.” Florida Railroad Museum. frrm.org (museum source; secondary)

Richmond Daily Dispatch, March 8, 15 and 18, 1862, as transcribed on csa-railroads.com (transcriptions; original pages not examined)

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Copyright © 2026 Wm. E. McMullen II.