Dennis Partridge

The CSA Muster Records on the website were extracted by Lori Bragg primarily from Ron Thompson’s website of Civil War Military Units in Florida, and contain the known musters from nine Florida CSA Companies. The CSA records are known to be inaccurate, and our records probably contain individuals from other counties, and have some people missing. However, they represent a detailed effort to capture Nassau County members of the CSA who could be your ancestors. Obviously, this work should be verified by other sources.Muster Records on our site: 1st Florida Reserves, Companies B and E 2nd Florida Cavalry, Company D 2nd Florida Cavalry, Company E 2nd Florida Cavalry, Company I 3rd Florida Infantry, Company D 5th Florida Battalion Cavalry, Company C 5th Florida Battalion Cavalry, Company G 5th Florida Infantry, Company C 5th Florida Infantry, Company I (The Wakulla Tigers) The Civil War Soldiers and Sailors system presented by the National Park Service at Andersonville, GA has all known Civil War participants listed with their units and published histories. See https://www.nps.gov/civilwar/soldiers-and-sailors-database.htm to search for both Union and CSA members.

The marriage data for Nassau County from 14 August 1867 to 9 Jan 1895 have been extracted from the Nassau County Marriage Books and are included in this data group. These records provide the date of marriage along with the name of bride and groom.

The first Confederate pensions in Florida were authorized in 1885 and granted to veterans the sum of $5.00 per month. The next three decades saw a new Confederate pension bill introduced at nearly every session of the Legislature. Residency requirements were added and adjusted, militia members and widows were declared eligible, various financial qualifications were added and changed, and the amount and method of distribution were changed many times. The data you see here are an extract of the files for both individual pensions and widows pensions. The widow’s application is filed with that of her husband. The complete pension record can contain a significant amount of information regarding the individual and the widow if she filed. Our data however is limited to: The case number; first and last name; unit name and number; Widows name; and year filed. Confederate pensions were awarded to residents of Florida regardless of the state in which their service was rendered. View a scanned copy of the original pension by clicking on the Case Number button in the More Details listing for each person. These are available online at no charge through the Florida Memory Project and we’ve created a direct link to the pension file for you.

In March 1862, a Union fleet of some 26 vessels under the command of Navy Flag Officer Samuel F. DuPont arrived at Fernandina from its base at Port Royal, South Carolina. Confederate troops had been withdrawn in the face of this overwhelming Union force and both Fernandina and nearby Fort Clinch were captured without violence. Most of the community’s residents also fled the island for Confederate held areas in the interior. For the remainder of the war, Fernandina was a center of operations for the Union Navy’s South Atlantic Blockading Squadron, a rest center for Union troops, and a base for Union raiding expeditions into the adjacent areas of Florida and Georgia. After this occupation, Fernandina became a haven for Unionist refugees and escaped slaves from Florida and Georgia. On the 8th day of December 1864 Captain John H. Brinker, who was a captain of the 107th Ohio Volunteers, and the Provost Marshall for Fernandina, completed a census of the the civilian population under the protection of the Union Army in Fernandina. This was part of a larger census ordered for the east coast of Florida including Jacksonville, Fernandina and St. Augustine. During the Civil War, Confederate-owned slaves who sought refuge in Union military camps or who lived in territories that fell under Union control were declared “contraband of war”. This policy was first articulated by General Benjamin F. Butler in 1861, in what came to be known as the “Fort Monroe Doctrine,” established in Hampton, Virginia. By war’s end,

A State Census is an extremely valuable tool for research covering the period between 1880 and 1900, since the Federal Census for 1890 was almost completely destroyed. Florida conducted statewide censuses in both 1885 and 1895, and a transcription of the 1895 Nassau County census data is posted here. Only the records for Nassau County from 1895 are available at the Florida State Archives. They were also published by the Jacksonville Genealogical Society. Citation: 1895 state census, Nassau County, Florida; Jacksonville Genealogical Society (Florida); Books/Monographs; Jacksonville, Florida; Jacksonville Genealogical Society, ©1976. While data from almost all of the Florida counties exist from the 1885 Census, data from Nassau County and three other Florida counties is missing. So, the 1895 census of Nassau County is the only census data available to you for that critical “twenty year” gap in the Federal Census records. Note regarding census page numbers and content Due to an overlapping numbering system, the census page numbers are separated by listing Fernandina with page numbers beginning with F. These include page numbers F5 through F39. The rest of the county is listed with page numbers 4 through 128. This is not a complete census of everyone who lived in Nassau County Florida in 1895. While it contains the names of many who lived here during this period, the transcription is incomplete!