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Confederate raiders land on Santa Rosa Island; Union troops throw them back before dawn
Fort Pickens holds, keeping the last Union stronghold on the Gulf Coast out of Confederate hands.
Six months after Fort Sumter fell, one federal post on the Gulf Coast had not. Fort Pickens, perched on Santa Rosa Island off Pensacola, Florida, remained in Union hands even as the rest of the Deep South had seceded around it. Before dawn on October 9, 1861, Confederate troops landed on the island in an attempt to seize the fort and its garrison. Union soldiers met the assault and drove the raiders back to their boats, keeping the fort under the federal flag…
