Olustee/ Ocean Pond Battlefield

Fought primarily in pine forests and palmettos, the CSA victory direced by Gen. Alfred Colquitt blocked Union General Truman Seymour’s attempt to sever the Florida peninsula from the CSA states to the north and enabled Florida to remain “The Breadbasket to the Confederacy” until the end of the Civil War. CSA support artillery arrived on railroad flat cars from Lake City to provide CSA momentum for victory. Union forces of 5,500 troops sustained 1,961 casualties and Colquitt’s 5,000 suffered 946. Based on number of troops and volume of casualties, Olustee/Ocean Pond was one of the five bloodiest battles of the war. The horror was the battle was intensified when the pine straw mat of the battle field ignited and forest fire engulfed the dead and wounded. The battlefield is located on US 90 in Baker County, about 15 miles east of Lake City.