Apalachicola During the Civil War

Apalachicola During the Civil War. . , When the Civil War began, the Apalachicola River was a vital transportation artery. With its Chattahoochee and Flint River tributaries navigable as far north as Columbus and Albany in Georgia, the river provided access to Apalachicola, a vital Southern shipping port. , Part of the Union strategy for waging the Civil war was to blockade the Southern coastline, choking off commerce and slowly strangling the Confederacy. Rivers like the Apalachicola could then be used to access the interior. As part of the Union naval strategy to blockade Southern ports, the U.S. Navy closed access to the Chattahoochee River system at Apalachicola on June 11, 1861 and maintained its coastal presence there for the remainder of the war. , Confederates responded by fortifying upstream, placing heavy cannons along their banks in a desperate effort to hold back the gunboats of the Union Navy. , Southern forces defended the town for the first year of the war, but by Spring of 1862 the Confederate forces had evacuated the town, principally due to the fact that the state convention abolished the state militia, who were garrisoning Apalachicola. It took the Union ships blockading the port a week to discover that all the troops were gone. A boat expedition into town could find nobody with the authority to surrender the City. Unsatisfied, the Union commander launched a larger expedition, capturing six sailing vessels and telling the town's few remaining residents they could continue to fish and oyster as long as they took no action to support the Confederate government. The first capture and occupation of Apalachicola lasted just a few hours. , The Union navy settled into a long, dull presence on the coast, while Confederate officers and engineers upriver struggled to build a ship that could break the blockade and restore trade to the region. The strategic importance of the blockade was threefold: Columbus, Ga., one of the most industrialized cities in the Deep South, sat at the head of the navigable portion of the Chattahoochee River; Apalachicola, a major shipping center, lay on the coast and; a fertile cotton-growing region, the lifeblood of the Southern economy, sprawled between the two. , Apalachicola became a ghost of its antebellum self since the blockade cut off all trade to and from the port. The overall effect of the blockade was to swiftly shift economic and military importance elsewhere for the remainder of the war. , Although Apalachicola suffered economically as a result of the Civil War, the city made transition to peacetime with a brief revival of the cotton trade until railroads, destroyed in Georgia during the war, were rebuilt. Then Apalachicola entered a decade of economic stagnation until the lumber industry began to blossom in the late 1870s and heralded a new economic life for the City. , , , , , . During the Civil War, both Confederate and Union forces often appeared in Apalachicola. At times during the war, both sides occupied the Orman house. , Local legend states that Sarah Orman, a proud Confederate, would simulate roof repairs whenever Union troops arrived in town. She would place a large nail keg on the Captain's walk of the house to alert southern sympathizers upriver and Confederate soldiers coming home on furlough that the Union was in Apalachicola. During the war the Orman fortune was dealt a blow and the family was forced to sell the bricks of the "Charity House" and all that currently remains is the foundation of this building. , Scan the code to read more Apalachicola history at www.Cityofapalachicola.com