Sylvania Plantation page now online at TwoEggFla.com

I've added another new page as part of the expansion of the main http://www.twoeggfla.com/ website. This one focuses on Sylvania Plantation, the home of Governor John Milton that stood less than 7 miles southwest of downtown Two Egg, Florida.

The future governor was a prosperous and successful lawyer and businessman when he arrived in Jackson County in 1847, having acquired a couple of thousand acres of land surrounding Blue Spring. The property had originally belonged to his mother's family, but Milton decided to relocate there from New Orleans following a terrible steamboat accident in which he had been severely burned by scalding hot steam.

By 1855, the plantation had grown to encompass more than 6,300 acres and Milton was also beginning to develop a second farm near today's Parramore community east of Two Egg. His holdings made him one of the most powerful men in the South and in 1860 he was elected Governor of Florida. In those days nearly one year passed between the election of a governor and his inauguration, so he did not take office until October of 1861. In the months that passed between his election and his inauguration, Florida had seceded from the Union and the War Between the States had begun.

Milton often came home to Sylvania during the war and kept his family there throughout the conflict both for their comfort and their safety. The main house was described as a long, low dwelling with a piazza extending entirely across its front. It was set in a large grove of trees, a sylvan setting from which it took its name.

Milton ended his life at Sylvania on April 1, 1865. Realizing that the Confederacy was about to fall, he had told friends that death would be preferable to defeat at the hands of the North.

To visit the new page, please go to www.twoeggfla.com/sylvania.

A Union Soldier with a Confederate Flag

I spent some time last night walking through Cowpen Pond Cemetery, where many of my ancestors are buried, and found this to be of interest.

The grave is the final resting place of "H.W." Neel (also given as "W.H. Neel"), a Civil War soldier, and someone placed a Confederate flag by his headstone. This is commonly done to honor Confederate soldiers at cemeteries across the South.

Neel, however, was not a Confederate at the end of the war. In fact, he was fighting for the other side.

According to his service record, Neel enlisted in Company D of the 1st Florida U.S. Cavalry, a Union regiment, near the end of the war. Born in 1847, he was 18 years old when he joined the Union army at Pensacola in March of 1865.

Formerly a soldier in Company E of the 5th Florida Cavalry (Confederate), Neel deserted near the end of the war and made his way to Pensacola where he enlisted in the Union Army. He left the Union regiment in August of 1865, after the end of the war.

His story was actually more common than many realize today. By the end of the war, many Confederate soldiers realized that the "Cause" had been lost. They were also irate over the fact that Confederate commissary agents were roaming through the country taking livestock and other food supplies, often at gunpoint, from families that were near starvation themselves. Hundreds of men from Florida deserted during the last year of the war and joined the Union side because they believed the Confederate agents were mistreating Southern civilians.

Governor John Milton, also from Jackson County, wrote numerous protests to Richmond about the treatment of civilians in his state, but they largely fell on deaf ears. He stated on several occasions that many loyal Floridians felt their families were being treated worse by Confederate commissary agents than by the Union army.

Sylvania Plantation - Home of Governor John Milton

Located a few miles south of Two Egg is the site of Sylvania Plantation, the home of Florida's Confederate Governor, John Milton.

The plantation property is located in the vicinity of Sylvania Plantation Road and Blue Springs Highway, just up the hill from Blue Spring. The road leads northeast from the old plantation site and crosses Highway 69 just west of Two Egg crossroads.

Milton lived here during the years leading up to the War Between the States. A tutor, brought in to educate his younger children, wrote in her journal that the home was not a classic Southern mansion, but instead was a large home with a low, overhanging roof and verandas running around it. It was situated in a pleasant grove of trees.

It was here that Milton planned his successful campaign for governor and that he spent many hours during his brief trips away from Tallahassee during the war. At the end of the war, after hearing of the fall of Petersburg, he came here to consider the situation. He died from a gunshot that many believe was suicide, although there is also tradition that it might have been an accident.

The home no longer stands, but a state marker can be seen at the site.