Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 1.djvu/481

Rh resistance. Fernandina, Jacksonville and St. Augustine fell into the hands of the United States. Finally the entire coast of Florida was under Federal control. The war department removed munitions from the State and transferred the troops to Tennessee.

A singular scheme for the armed colonization of this State is described by a Federal authority of that date and is here reproduced to show the extent to which it was then supposed that the United States government might exercise the power of subjugation. &quot; A scheme for the armed colonization of Florida was brought to the notice of the Federal government by Eli Thayer, of Massachusetts, during the year. It consisted of a proposition for an expedition of 10,000 colonists enlisted for six months, and to be supplied with arms, subsistence and transportation by the government, and a commander whose business it should be to occupy and hold the public lands of the State, and the lands of disloyal citizens which were to be seized for the non-payment of taxes under a law of Congress passed at the session then closed. It received some consideration by the government, but was not adopted.&quot; A resemblance appears between this scheme and a plan urged by General Sherman in a letter to his brother, the eminent statesman.

The military operations for the next two months, April and May, 1862, show advances made by the Federal armies and navies, and the skill, both civil and military, with which the invasion was met. McClellan, on the first of April, made a change of base and concentrated his forces near Fortress Monroe to advance on Richmond from the peninsula with a fully equipped command consisting of over one hundred thousand men. He was confronted by the Confederate armies under General Johnston, who at length evacuated Norfolk and fell back slowly on a well-chosen line of retreat toward the defenses around Richmond. In the West the Confederate lines of defense were totally changed by the battles