Area historians reflect on day Florida seceded from union 150 years ago

Hank Hendry has the Civil War in his blood. The Fort Myers attorney’s downtown office sits off Main Street, on a piece of land that would have been within the wooden walls of the original United States military fort built during the Seminole Wars. It is also the very fort that his great, great grandfather, Capt. Francis Asbury Hendry, attacked with his Confederate “Cow Cavalry” during the Battle of Fort Myers — the southernmost land skirmish of the Civil War. In addition, Hendry has a relative on his mother’s side who was a member of the Union Army, fighting with a regiment from Ohio. Along with the American Revolution and World War II, the Civil War remains one of the most fascinating and controversial periods in American history. For Civil War buffs, especially Civil War buffs from Florida, Monday marks a unique milestone in that history — the 150th anniversary, or Sesquicentennial, of Florida’s secession from the Union. “It’s not a celebration. It’s an observance,” said Richard Macomber, president of the Lee County Civil War Roundtable. “You don’t celebrate war. Actually, it was a sad thing that it came to war. But it was an important event, so it needs to be remembered.” On Jan. 10, 1861, the Florida Legislature gathered in Tallahassee and voted 62 to 7 to take the state out of the Union. Florida was the third state to secede, following the lead of South Carolina, which left the Union on Dec. 20, 1860, and Mississippi, which seceded on Jan. 9, 1861...more