By WILLIAM SNOWDEN

wsnowden@thewakullanews.net

Hundreds of Civil War reenactors and thousands of spectators were on hand for this year's Battle of Natural Bridge, to commemorate the skirmish between Confederate and Union forces at Natural Bridge on March 6, 1865.

Back then, the Confederates repelled the Union forces who were seeking to cross the St. Marks River. At the reenactment, the rebels again routed the bluebellies and – 145 years later – the capitol at Tallahassee remained uncaptured.

In addition to the excitement of gun and cannonfire, the event offered educational demonstrations on how people of the Civil War time period lived, including interactive lectures with reenactors, and demonstration of such skills has battleground medical treatments.

Some of the other demonstrations included sewing, spinning, knitting, needlework, and candle-making.

This was the 33rd reenactment staged at the battlefield, and this year featured a reenactor in the role of Frederick Douglass, the former slave turned abolitionist, author and reformer.

One reenactor, giving a demonstration on Saturday, March 6, showed off some of the items a typical soldier may carry – eating utensils, bowl, shaving kit, lice comb. He held up a deck of playing cards and noted that soldiers threw them away before they went into battle, fearing that if they were killed, the cards would get sent back with their personal effects to mother she would see how he had spent his time.

"There were probably cards all between here and Newport," he said. Although he added that, as soon as the battle was over, the first stop for soldiers would have been the sutler to pick up more cards.

After reenacting a skirmish on Saturday, a medical demonstration was performed in which a surgeon in a blood-soaked smock removed an eyeball from one soldier's head, removed shrapnel from another soldier's gut, and amputated another soldier's arm – while the wounded screamed.

The actual events leading up to the battle of Natural Bridge were set in motion several days earlier, when about 1,000 U.S. Colored Troops went ashore from four U.S. Navy ships at the St. Marks Lighthouse. They came in under darkness, and there movements were aided by a heavy fog that morning.

While part of the legend about the Battle of Natural Bridge has been that it kept Tallahassee the only Confederate capitol east of the Mississippi uncaptured during the war – it doesn't appear that capturing Tallahassee was the goal.

The mission given to the force by Brigadier General John Newton, who was commander of Key West, according to the memoirs of Captain Thomas Chatfield of the U.S. Navy, was to free some Union soldiers reportedly being held near Thomasville, Ga. Under those orders, though, the Union officers thought they might send some gunships in to take control of St. Marks, if Confederates moved to confront the Union force and left Fort Ward undermanned. Fort Ward was constructed on the ruins of the Spanish Fort San Marcos at the confluence of the Wakulla and St. Marks rivers.

The Union forces planned to go around St. Marks, crossing the East River Bridge near the Lighthouse and crossing the St. Marks River at the bridge at Newport. But Confederates skirmished with the federals at the East River Bridge and burned the Newport Bridge.

Union scouts noted a crossing was possible at Natural Bridge, and the Confederate forces deduced that's where the federals would try. The field commander kept most of his troops in Newport and sent an advance guard to Natural Bridge, fearing the Confederates would attempt to encircle him.

The Confederates, with aid from the Gadsden Grays, cadets from the Florida Military Institute in Tallahassee (later to be Florida State University), and volunteers from around the area, built defenses and emplaced guns on the high ground above the St. Marks River..

Captain Chatfield, a Massachusetts whaler who served in the Navy during the Civil War and who wrote his memoirs several decades after the war, was on board his ship at the time of the battle, but he related stories from Union soldiers who claimed the battle was underway when they heard a far-off train whistle and the Confederate gunfire steadily increased – reportedly, more volunteers had arrived via the St. Marks Rail Road to defend Natural Bridge.

The Union forces suffered heavy casualties –  more than 250 men killed or mortally wounded. They retreated to the safety of the federal fleet.

Two gunships that had tried to go upriver and challenge Fort Ward were grounded in the shallows, and only worked themselves free shortly before the troops arrived back at the Lighthouse.