Combat· American Civil War
Fernandina occupied
The bloodless seizure of a key port on the Florida-Georgia line, completing the Union sweep of the South Atlantic coast.
As Du Pont's squadron pressed south after Port Royal, the Confederates abandoned their works on Amelia Island rather than face the fleet, and on 4 March 1862 Major John Reynolds' Marine battalion landed from the transports and occupied Fernandina without resistance, the garrison having already withdrawn. The capture gave the Union another good harbor and closed one more port to blockade-runners. It was part of the same rapid, largely unopposed extension of Federal control down the coast that took St. Simons, Jekyll, Brunswick, and the other Georgia and Florida points in those weeks, the Confederates pulling back from the exposed seaboard and leaving the islands and river towns to be occupied. No casualties attended the occupation, which secured the southern anchor of the South Atlantic blockade.
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Record no. 413