Union General Truman Seymour had landed troops at Jacksonville, aiming chiefly to disrupt Confederate food supply.

Meeting little resistance, he proceeded towards the state capital of Tallahassee, against orders, assuming that he would face only the small Florida militia.

[2] Additionally, Florida became a refuge for an increasing number of Confederate deserters and pro-Union Floridians, which seemingly made it a more vulnerable target for raids and assaults by Union forces.

By the following month, Gillmore ordered an expedition into Florida to secure Union enclaves, sever Confederate supply routes, and recruit black soldiers.

[4] Brigadier General Truman Seymour, in command of the expedition, landed troops at Jacksonville, in an area already seized by the Union in March 1862.

During these raids, he met little resistance, seized several Confederate camps, captured small bands of troops and artillery pieces, and liberated slaves.

[5][6][7] Seymour's preparations at Hilton Head had concerned the Confederate command in the key port city of Charleston, South Carolina.

At approximately 2:30 in the afternoon of February 20, the Union force approached General Finegan's 5,000 Confederates entrenched near Olustee Station.

Finegan sent out an infantry brigade to meet Seymour's advance units and lure them into the Confederate entrenchments, but this plan went awry.

Seymour made the mistake of assuming he was once again facing Florida militia units he had previously routed with ease and committed his troops piecemeal into the battle.

[10] Soldiers on both sides were veterans of the great battles in the eastern and western theaters of war, but many of them remarked in letters and diaries that they had never undergone such terrible fighting.

One Georgia newspaper referred to Union forces as walking "forty miles over the most barren land of the South, frightening the salamanders and the gophers, and getting a terrible thrashing".

The reenactment of the Battle of Olustee is co-sponsored by four organizations: the Olustee Battlefield Historic State Park Citizens Support Organization; the Florida Department of Environmental Protection – Recreation and Parks; the USDA Forest Service – Osceola National Forest; and The Blue-Grey Army, Inc.[5][16] The lithograph at the top of the page was printed by the firm of Kurz and Allison in 1894.