Today in Florida During the Civil War …

January 19

1861 A Federal force under the command of Brevet Major L. G. Arnold occupied Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas today. In St. Augustine, Colonel G. C. Gibbs announced that the city was preparing its defenses against a Federal attack.

1862 The U.S.S. Itasca, under the command of lieutenant Charles H. B. Caldwell, today captured the Confederate ship, Lizzie Weston, off the coast of Florida enroute to Jamaica with a cargo of cotton.

1863 The effectiveness of the Federal blockade of the Southern coast was revealed in this captured letter from Nassau: “There are men here who are making immense fortunes by shipping goods to Dixie…Salt, for example, was one of the most paying things to send in. Here in Nassau it is only worth 60 cents a bushel, but in Charleston brings at auction from $80 to $100 in Confederate money, but as Confederate money is no good out of the Confederacy they send back cotton or turpentine, which, if it reaches here, is worth proportionally as much here as the salt is there….It is a speculation by which one makes either 600 or 800 per cent or loses all.”

1864 The U.S.S. Roebuck today captured the British blockade-runner Eliza about a mile inside Jupiter Inlet with a cargo of fourteen bales of cotton. Roebuck also captured the British sloop Mary inside Jupiter Inlet later in the day. TheMary had a cargo of 31 bales of cotton.