This week marks 161 years since Union and Confederate troops met in The Battle of Fort Myers.

It was one of the 10,000 places where the Civil War was fought, to paraphrase the opening narration in Ken Burn's epic PBS-TV series: The Civil War. WGCU is marking the battle as a key event in Southwest Florida, contributing to the 250 years since America declared itself independent of foreign control and government.

The library on present-day Sanibel Island is about as far removed from the battlefields of the 1860's as you can imagine.

Duane Shaffer is the library program director, and also happens to be an authority on what happened in the southernmost battle of the civil war.

"It was significant because, well, I feel it really was the birth of Fort Myers proper, Shaffer said.  

The IMAG History and Science Center in Fort Myers offers a virtual reality experience that transports people to the fort as it appeared in 1865. It was right on the Caloosahatchee river, and had officers quarters and tents and barracks for enlisted soldiers. There was a general store, and most importantly, a pier and large wharf to load cattle onto boats.

That ultimately brought the two sides into open conflict.

"The Battle of Fort Myers was over cows," Shaffer said.    

Florida had cattle, and lots of them. The Confederates were sending the beef north to units still fighting in Virginia. That is: until Union troops from Fort Myers started raiding farms and ranches all across the southern and south-central parts of the state. Union soldiers loaded stolen cattle onto ships at the Fort Myers dock, and sent the beef to northern troops.

This cattle rustling upset the southern commanders.

"It got to the point, they couldn't take it anymore — the union disrupting the cattle trade," Shaffer said. "So they came down here,  they marshalled a force of 100 to 200 guys, and they gathered at what is present-day LaBelle." 

The Confederates called themselves:   The Cattle Guard, or Cow Cavalry.    They marched to Billie's Creek near the fort on the morning of February 20, 1865.     They first encountered pickets, guards, and took them prisoner. 

Then they encountered another soldier, a black man, possibly a former slave who had joined the Union Army.

A gunfight followed, and the soldier was killed. Nobody has found a definite record of his name.

A big cannon was aimed at the fort and Confederates demanded surrender.

The Union commander refused.

The fort had at least two cannons, and they blasted Confederate lines. Records document a six-to-eight hour battle. The Cow Cavalry talked about rushing the fort, but then decided: it would be wiser to just leave.

"As the Confederates retreated back to present-day LaBelle, a union patrol followed," Shaffer explained. "They found bloody bandages and stretchers and splints along the way.   So they figured:   the Confederates got hurt pretty badly." 

Shaffer says his ancestors from the border state of Maryland fought for both North and South, and some disappeared — almost certainly among the dead. He wrote a book about New Hampshire's role in the war. And he believes the Battle of Fort Myers has meaning.

"I would say the strength and resilience of the Union troops," he said. "They didn't surrender. They didn't give in to the Confederates."   

Weeks after the battle, Union troops abandoned Fort Myers.

The war ended with Confederate General Robert E. Lee's surrender in early April, 1865. Why then, should we know or care about this, now?

"If it's not remembered and the veterans are not honored, these things are lost in the mists of time.," Shaffer said. "We lose track.  And to study the battles of the past, is to understand the future and what could happen." 

The battle had effects right after the war. Wood from the barracks and other buildings was used to construct the first post-war homes in Fort Myers. And in 1887, when it came time to incorporate a county in the Fort Myers area, supporters of the South — once again American citizens —made sure to name it after Robert E Lee.

More recently the city put up a statue, honoring black soldiers who fought in the battle, and helped to defend the fort.

The faces of some of them remain in the artwork on one side of the U.S. Courthouse in Fort Myers.

Sponsored in part by the State of Florida through the Division of Arts and Culture.
Mike Walcher is a reporter with WGCU News and also teaches Journalism at Florida Gulf Coast University.