Amnesty Oath of George Burt.
On March 11, 1862, the city of St. Augustine surrendered without violence to United States naval forces. Rather than face invasion and bombardment from a fleet anchored just offshore, the town’s leadership chose to acquiesce to the demands of Commander C. R. P. Rodgers, who was himself under the command of U.S. Navy Flag Officer Samuel F. DuPont. The Oldest City would remain in Union hands for the remainder of the Civil War. Commander Rogers reported that the men of the town were largely “conciliatory” to the Union recovery of the town, given that most of those of fighting age were off fighting in other regions. The women, however, were reportedly much more hostile, going so far as to accost and resist U.S. forces. While St. Augustine was formally occupied by the Federals, guerilla activity outside of the town proper was frequent, and eventually became so serious that Brigadier General H. W. Benham of the U.S. Army threatened the populace of the city with retaliatory measures.
Colonel Louis Bell of the 4th New Hampshire Infantry would be the first commanding officer of a U.S. Army unit in recaptured St. Augustine. He would be followed by a series of colonels in command of other units rotated into the Oldest City, who were all ultimately tasked with regulating and feeding the civilian populace. It was under Colonel Bell, however, that oaths of allegiance to the United States were demanded of the townspeople. Across the South, as in St. Augustine, Union forces sought to both reestablish control over territory and reintegrate southerners back into the United States. Part of this process was the requirement of rebel citizens to take loyalty oaths to the United States. For St. Augustinians to receive federal supplies and relief while under occupation, they had to sign these oaths. The documents attested (at least on paper) to their loyalty to the United States government. During Reconstruction, amnesty oaths for former Confederate officials and soldiers would also be administered as well. The images provided here from our collections illustrate what these documents looked like.
Loyalty Oath of George Burt.
With General Robert E. Lee’s surrender of Confederate forces on April 9, 1865, the Civil War largely drew to a close and the process of Reconstruction began. News of Lee’s surrender reached St. Augustine on April 23, 1865, and Florida fell under martial law in May. The Thirteenth Amendment, which outlawed slavery, was ratified by Florida on December 28, 1865. Colonel John T. Sprague, commander of the East Florida region, moved his military headquarters from Jacksonville to St. Augustine a year later in May 1866. He was elevated to command of all of Florida in 1867, the same year that the Freedmen’s Bureau headquarters for the state was also moved to St. Augustine. This strong military presence kept the town largely peaceful. It also served as a means to assure male Black residents that they would be allowed to register to vote and participate in elections. Colonel Sprague turned Florida over to the civilian government of moderate Republican Governor Harrison Reed on July 4, 1868. The Fourteenth Amendment was ratified hardly a month prior, on June 9, 1868, granting formerly enslaved individuals their rights and liberties as citizens.
In St. Augustine, the end of U.S. Army occupation and military rule brought with it a renewed fervor of political activism, especially as 1868 was an election year. Both Black Republican and Southern Democrat factions staged marches in town, some of which turned violent. In the early years of post-Civil War civilian governance, Florida saw many Republicans come into state positions during the 1870s. In St. Augustine and St. Johns County, several Black Republicans were elected to prominent positions in local government. St. Augustine for the most part, however, would eventually swing back under the control of conservative White Southern Democrats, who largely limited the rights of newly freed persons through the passage of various “Jim Crow” laws. Many former Confederates also found their way back into local politics, reinforcing traditional southern racial hierarchies. By the 1880s, such a political landscape would be the norm across the states of the former Confederacy, despite the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment on March 30, 1870.
Sources Consulted
Loyalty Oath to the United States of America, August 3, 1865. Legal and Government Documents Collection, 26.179.1. The Henry Ford Museum, Dearborn, MI. Accessed August 5, 2024. https://www.thehenryford.org/collections-and-research/digital-collections/artifact/345284
Burt, George. Oath of Loyalty and Amnesty Oath, 1865. MC1 George Burt Papers, Box 5 Folder 28. Research Library Manuscript Collection, St. Augustine Historical Society, St. Augustine, FL.
Graham, Thomas. “The Home Front- Civil War Times in St. Augustine,” El Escribano Vol. 23 (1986): 19-45.
Graham, Thomas. Valiant Soldiers- St. Augustine’s Men of Color in the Age of Civil War and Reconstruction. St. Augustine, FL: The St. Augustine Historical Society, 2022.
King, Tom. “In War Between the States, St. Augustine Surrendered Hundred Years Ago,” The St. Augustine Record (St. Augustine, FL), March 11, 1962.
Redd, Robert. St. Augustine and the Civil War. Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2014.
Written by: Robert Covert, Special Collections Manager & Editor-in-Chief