Tampa in the Civil War — Tampa, Florida

Tampa spent the war as a lightly defended Confederate port under recurring Union naval pressure. The student-built history site Tampa Historical dates the encounters with Union gunboats from April 1862 until May 1864, when the Union finally seized Fort Brooke and the town of Tampa. Between those dates came two rounds of shelling in 1862, a raid and two linked battles in October 1863, and a final capture on May 6, 1864. Clio notes that Fort Brooke, the old Seminole War post at the mouth of the Hillsborough River, was occupied by Confederate troops for most of that time.

Accounts disagree about how hard the war hit the town. Emerging Civil War, writing on the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Ballast Point in October 2013, concludes that the town was all but destroyed during the conflict, along with its blockade runners and local salt works. The City of Tampa's history page takes the longer view: in spite of the blockade and Federal occupation during the Civil War, the area grew steadily. Both readings rest on the same events at Fort Brooke, the Jean Street Shipyard and Ballast Point.

The first shots came in spring 1862. According to Tampa Historical's Battle of Tampa entry, on April 13, 1862, the Union gunboats Ethan Allen and the Beauregard pulled into Tampa Bay. Their commander, Lieutenant W. B. Eaton, demanded the unconditional surrender of Fort Brooke and allowed twenty-four hours to remove women and children before bombarding the town. Confederate Major R. B. Thomas refused, the civilians left, and the gunboats shelled Tampa for two days with little effect before withdrawing.

The Union returned on June 30, 1862, with the USS Sagamore under Captain A. J. Drake, which again sent a demand under a flag of truce. Captain John W. Pearson, now commanding at Fort Brooke, answered that he did not understand the meaning of the word surrender, and the shelling began that evening at 6 o'clock and continued on and off through July 1. The fort repaired a few damaged guns but suffered no casualties. The repeated evacuations had a lasting effect on daily life: the encounters led to Tampa being described as somewhat of a ghost town by those in the fort.

Tampa's war economy ran on cattle and Cuba, and James McKay Sr. sat at the center of both. Emerging Civil War reports that Tampa businessmen James McKay and David Hope owned and operated a shipping line that ran from Tampa to Havana, and that McKay organized the Cowboy Cavalry that supplied beef to the Confederate army. The Union had captured McKay in 1861 and released him on a pledge to stop serving the Confederacy, a pledge he did not keep.

His shipyard made him a target. Tampa Historical's Jean Street Shipyard entry explains that McKay built and maintained blockade runners at the yard on the Hillsborough River, and that his ships had made six previous successful trading runs to Cuba with cotton and cattle, returning to Tampa with guns and ammunition. The same entry notes that McKay, born in Scotland and a British subject all his life, was elected Tampa's sixth mayor with a one-year term in 1859, the only non-citizen ever elected mayor of Tampa.

Other Tampa cattlemen organized too. Tampa Historical's entry on John T. Lesley says Lesley formed the Sunny South Guards, a Tampa volunteer company that went on to serve as far away as Georgia and Tennessee, and commanded the Cow Cavalry, which protected cattle from federal raiders and organized drives to feed the Confederate army under the blockade.

The October 1863 attack was built around a feint. Tampa Historical records that on October 13, 1863, two Federal gunboats, the Adela and Tahoma, arrived in Tampa Bay and began shelling Fort Brooke on October 15; the bombardment lasted all day and 126 shells were fired at the fort. Emerging Civil War dates the fort's fight to October 16 through 18 and explains that the gunboats were a diversion for a landing party whose real target was McKay's small fleet up the Hillsborough River.

The landing party came ashore at Ballast Point. The Jean Street Shipyard entry describes about 100 troops making an amphibious landing at Ballast Point, what is now the corner of Gandy and Bayshore boulevards, and marching fourteen miles north to the Jean Street Shipyard. There they burned McKay's blockade runners Scottish Chief and Kate Dale, and the Confederate defenders destroyed their own steamer, A.B. Noyes, so that it could not be taken.

The return march brought the actual battle. Confederate troops from Fort Brooke and local militia caught the Union party on its way back, and the two sides fought at Ballast Point on October 18 before the raiders reached their boats. The tallies do not match: the shipyard entry counts three Union troops and twelve Confederates dead in the Battle of Ballast Point, while Tampa Historical's battle entry says each side lost about twenty men. Both sides claimed victory.

The end came quietly. Emerging Civil War reports that about six months after Ballast Point the Union sent three additional boats to Tampa and captured the town along with Fort Brooke; Clio gives the date as May 6, 1864. According to Tampa Historical, Northern forces destroyed all of the main buildings inside the fort in 1864 and a salt processing factory owned by McKay, the Confederate blockade runner and former mayor. The Union later left the town, which held little strategic value to either side, but Union forces occupied the fort itself from 1864 until 1869.

Peace brought an odd reversal at the fort. Clio records that for four years after the war the U.S. Army used Fort Brooke as a base to control the Tampa area and leased part of it, including the pier, to James McKay, now described simply as a cattle rancher. Lesley's postwar path ran through civic office: Tampa Historical says he became Tampa's 12th mayor in 1869 and later served in the Florida House and Senate.

The most tangible relic lies underwater. Tampa Historical reports that in the final week of August 2009, the 124-foot hull of the Scottish Chief was found by researchers and divers from the Florida Aquarium in the Hillsborough River north of the Jean Street Shipyard, near Lowry Park Zoo. After the raid the burned ship had been towed upriver and sunk, and it still rests near the I-275 overpass. The Jean Street Shipyard, active as far back as 1843, still repairs river vessels.

Other reminders are commemorative. A bronze bust of James McKay Sr. by Tampa sculptor Steven Dickey stands on the Riverwalk outside the Tampa Convention Center, and McKay's gravestone is at Oaklawn Cemetery. The Battle of Ballast Point is reenacted each year by the 97th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, a reenactment group, in cooperation with Pinellas County Parks. Fort Brooke itself has no standing remains; Tampa Historical's park entry says its tract at the mouth of the Hillsborough River now holds Cotanchobee Fort Brooke Park, Amalie Arena and the Tampa Bay History Center.