These expeditions were part of a broader plan led by General Narciso López, who had failed in two previous invasion attempts originating in New Orleans in 1849 and 1850. The filibusters were following the Texas Republic blueprint: obtain Cuban independence with American volunteers, weapons and funds, and later petition for admission into the Union. Historical accounts of these events first appeared in Havana at the turn of the century, without mentioning Jacksonville.(2) Herminio Portell Vilá later wrote a López biography with brief references to Jacksonville.(3)
American scholarship on the López expeditions began in 1906 with Anderson C. Quisenberry's Lopez's Expeditions to Cuba 1850-1851. Nine years later, Robert G. Caldwell wrote The Lopez Expeditions to Cuba 1848-1851. Neither mentions Jacksonville, although they allude to the St. Johns River as a place where the expedition's artillery was stored in August 1851.(4) Basil Rauch described in 1948 the diplomatic implications of Cuban filibustering in American Interest in Cuba: 1848-1855, but excluded the Jacksonville activities.(5) Charles H. Brown's 1980 examination of the role of the López invasions within the broader context of manifest destiny toward Cuba, Mexico and Central America does not expand the earlier works.(6) The most recent work dealing with the subject, Josef Opatrny's U.S. Expansionism and Cuban Annexationism in the 1850s, erroneously placed the López reinforcement expedition in Key West, instead of Jacksonville.(7) The Cuban movement is missing from all Jacksonville histories, although news accounts frequently appeared in the local weekly newspapers for over a year.(8)
Jacksonville was an important gathering point for both 1851 filibuster expeditions, in conjunction with other Cuba invasion battalions formed in New Orleans, Savannah and New York. Volunteers were mustered, funds were collected, military drills were held daily and the Cuban flag waved in the streets of the city. Command positions in the Jacksonville Battalion went to Florida Militia officers. The rank-and-file contained many militiamen, including veterans of the Second Seminole War and the Mexican War. López, a freemason, also received valuable support from members of Solomon's Lodge No. 20 in Jacksonville.
Filibusters worked in secrecy, used code names in correspondence delivered by confidential couriers, and kept few records of their activities, because they could be used as evidence of violation of the Neutrality Law of 1818.(9) This essay traces the filibuster's affiliations and movements, relying often on newspaper notices of hotel registries and steamship passenger arrivals during 1850 and 1851. The common link between the Jacksonville filibusters and volunteers from Louisiana, Mississippi, Kentucky and Georgia in the López expeditions is that they were members of the state militia, were Mexican War veterans and were Freemasons. The author contends that a number of prominent Jacksonville residents, previously unidentified with López filibuster activities, were participants in the movement, either in a military role or in the support group that acquired recruits, funds, weapons and provisions. A pattern developed where previously unknown activists like Benjamin Hopkins, John P. Sanderson, Henry R. Saddler, Thomas E. Buckman, John N. Reeves, Thomas Tumlin and others, were repeatedly traveling with and staying at the same hotel with known filibuster leaders, especially during peak periods prior to scheduled expedition departures. Saddler is a good example of this contention. Although he resided a few hours away from Jacksonville, which preempted the frequent need for local lodging, he registered at the Jacksonville Hotel eight times within one year, always accompanied by a filibuster leader. This seems more than mere coincidence, especially since Saddler was also an officer of the Florida Militia and a member of Solomon's Lodge, No. 20. Another inference of affiliation is that census records identified some Jacksonville Hotel guests during the periods of expedition preparation as neighbors or residents of the same boarding house as known filibuster officers.
The filibuster Jacksonville Battalion was commanded by Henry Theodore Titus, a twenty-eight-year-old New Jersey-born former Philadelphia postal clerk. He was described as having "dark brown eyes and hair; standing well over six feet in height and weighing 250 pounds."(10) He had accompanied López as an Adjutant Lieutenant of the Kentucky Regiment in the 521-man expedition that landed on May 19, 1850 in Cárdenas, Cuba. A massive Spanish counterattack and a lack of popular support forced the filibusterers to retreat to Key West that same day. López and fifteen leaders were indicted in New Orleans the following month for violation of the Neutrality Law and their trial was set for December.
Titus, who was not charged, returned to Philadelphia, where he met with López in August. Plans were made for Titus to raise a filibuster contingent in the City of Brotherly Love before the end of the year.(11) Instead, Titus moved to Florida, arriving at the Jacksonville Hotel on September 9, 1850.(12) The establishment, on the southwest corner of Adams and Newnan streets, served as unofficial filibuster headquarters throughout the following year. It had just been renovated with the addition of twenty more rooms, the front extended to over five hundred feet, with piazzas in front and rear, and a capacity for over one hundred and fifty guests. The proprietor was thirty-six-year-old Samuel Buffington, a Florida Militia colonel, born in Georgia. Buffington was a member of Solomon's Lodge No. 20, and the owner of seventeen slaves.(13) Soon after arriving in Jacksonville, Titus entered into a partnership with John M. Cureton and a Mr. Harris to operate Florida's first steam-powered circular-saw mill at Empire Point, on the east bank of the St. John´s River, at the mouth of Pottsburg Creek.(14) Titus used the mill as a base of operations for the next invasion of Cuba.
The Jacksonville Hotel register soon indicated the arrival of Titus with people who figured prominently in the local Cuban filibuster movement. Titus was accompanied on September 29, 1850 by Henry R. Saddler and John N. Reeves, who were part of a nucleus that would frequently follow him during the next twelve months.(15) Reeves was a bachelor forty-year-old bookkeeper from Augusta, Georgia.(16) Saddler, a member of Solomon's Lodge No. 20, was a wealthy fifty-one-year-old Georgia-born planter, who owned the 5,200 acre Ortega plantation. His 170 slaves made him the second largest slave holder in Duval County in 1850. His brother-in-law John H. McIntosh had 187 slaves on his Laurel Grove plantation, in the present-day Jacksonville suburb of Orange Park.(17)
During the last week of October, the Titus coterie included Florida Militia General Benjamin Hopkins, his twenty-two-year-old merchant son John L. Hopkins, who would command a company of the filibuster Jacksonville Battalion, Georgia Militia Colonel Henry H. Floyd, John F. Frink and Jacob Rutherford, who served as assistant engineer for the Pampero steamer in the last expedition.(18) The fifty-one-year-old General Hopkins, a member of Solomon's Lodge No. 20, was born in South Carolina, raised his family in Georgia, and moved with them to a plantation in Putnam County, Florida, after statehood in 1845.(19) Floyd was a thirty-two-year-old planter from bordering Camden County, Georgia, whose neighbor, David Bailey, was also a filibuster.(20) Frink was a Florida-born twenty-three-year-old farmer from Hamilton County.(21) Others who started appearing on a regular basis in Jacksonville with the filibuster leadership included Florida Militia Colonel John P. Sanderson, Daniel C. Ambler and J. Henry Hawkins.(22) Sanderson, a thirty-seven-year-old Vermont-born lawyer, member of Solomon's Lodge No. 20, was a veteran of the Second Seminole War, owned a plantation with thirty slaves and had a partnership in a dry goods store.(23) Ambler was a forty-five-year-old New York-born wealthy dentist practicing in Jacksonville.(24) Hawkins was a thirty-two-year-old Kentucky-born attorney from Tallahassee.(25)
The plans of the Jacksonville group to invade Cuba were postponed after the filibuster trial began in New Orleans in December. López sent his second-in-command, Ambrosio José Gonzales, to Georgia in late January 1851 to organize the movement in Columbus, Macon, Atlanta and Savannah. Gonzales, a lawyer and college professor, was the first Cuban to shed his blood for Cuban independence in Cárdenas in 1850. Later, during the Civil War, he was Confederate Chief of Artillery for the Department of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida.(26) From his Pulaski House headquarters in Savannah, Gonzales recruited in coastal McIntosh and Camden counties and in northern Florida. A Yankee sojourning through the South heard of the filibuster plot and denounced it to New York Senator Hamilton Fish, who promptly relayed it to President Millard Fillmore. The informant provided details of the invasion plan and claimed that Gonzales "is probably favored by some of the large planters. His instrument with the rank and file, is a man known as Harry Titus a celebrated fighting man."(27)
López and the indicted filibuster leadership had their charges dismissed in New Orleans on March 7 after three mistrials, the last deadlocked eleven-to-one for acquittal.(28) A few weeks later, the New Orleans Delta reported a rumored uprising in Cuba, which circulated widely in Southern newspapers.(29) This prompted the premature departure on April 9 of a filibuster contingent from Rome, Georgia.(30) When they passed through Atlanta the next day, J. Reneas, editor of the Atlanta Republican, telegraphed President Fillmore: "Our rail-roads are crowded with an army of adventurers destined for Cuba-- by way of Savannah beyond all doubt."(31) Fillmore issued a Presidential Proclamation calling filibuster expeditions "adventures for plunder and robbery," in violation of U.S. laws, and ordered all civil and military officers to arrest the perpetrators. President Fillmore's appeal appeared in the Jacksonville press.(32)
During the three days prior to the scheduled invasion departure, presumed filibuster activists arriving in the Jacksonville Hotel included Ambler, Reeves, Thomas E. Buckman, Kingsley B. Gibbs, Joseph W. Hickman and Solomon F. Halliday, accompanied by Theodore O´Hara, a Kentucky-born thirty-one-year-old Mexican War veteran renown for the poem Bivouac of the Dead, who led the Kentucky Battalion in the Cárdenas invasion.(33) Buckman, a twenty-seven-year-old Pennsylvanian, member of Solomon's Lodge No. 20, later became a Confederate hero for building intricate torpedo mines against Union vessels in the St. Johns River.(34) Gibbs, a forty-one-year-old New Yorker, had been a Florida Militia Brigadier Major in the Second Seminole War, and owned a plantation with fifty-four slaves on Fort George Island.(35) Hickman was a twenty-year-old Floridian without an occupation, residing in the Jacksonville Hotel.(36) Halliday was a member of Masonic Alachua Lodge No. 26 in Newnansville and during the Civil War endorsed the Union occupation of Jacksonville.
The Jacksonville expeditionary force, composed of Northern Floridians and Southeast Georgians, had "some 600 men, 50 of whom were to be mounted."(37) It was a conspicuous assemblage, larger than the entire city population, estimated at four hundred.(38) A letter from St. Mary's, Georgia, to New Orleans, stated that "Many have volunteered from the middle counties, mostly young men of respectability and good standing. Capt. F[isher], of Tallahassee, who has seen some service in the Indian wars of Florida, and possesses talents, intelligence and influence, is, I learn, to be colonel. Young D--, son of Gen. D--, has a commission; he is a genuine fighting cock. Dr. F--, son of Mayor F--, goes as surgeon. In truth, most of the best young men of that section of the country have volunteered. Many of them are wealthy."(39)
The Newark Advertiser's "correspondent in Jacksonville" wrote on April 25 that the expedition would sail within thirty-six hours from rendezvous points on the St. Johns River, in St. Mary's, Georgia, and in New Orleans. He had recently seen in a local storehouse "cannon, gun-carriages, rifles, muskets, ammunition and the furniture of an army equipment to a very large amount." The correspondent also viewed about four hundred bushels of oats for horse feed, and "large quantities of wood and resin for the fuel on board the steamers, and horses and men are collected in this vicinity, ready for embarkation." He described the Jacksonville Battalion officers as "men of bravery and military talent," and most of the privates as Mexican War veterans. The troops included Floridians of Hispanic descent, Cubans and a few who had been previously engaged in the Cárdenas affair, unimpeded by the lack of a federal Marshal in the city. The same correspondent found that "It is interesting to observe how enticing and contagious is the war spirit." The expedition had been regarded as wild and chimeral by the citizenry the previous day, but "the field pieces and the muskets seem to have turned the heads of some from whom more wisdom would be expected."(40) This article, reproduced in numerous newspapers throughout the country, including the Philadelphia North American and the Louisville Democrat, put Jacksonville in the national spotlight.(41)
The local Florida Republican indicated that Jacksonville had "much of the appearance of a rendezvous for one branch of the 'patriot' army. Strange arrivals have been unusually frequent, among whom are one or two personages of note, who served as officers in the Cárdenas expedition."(42) The Newark Advertiser reporter wrote on Sunday the 27th that the Jacksonville ladies had wrought pretty tri-color Cuban banners, and "half the town seems disposed to go if their wives would let them." In preparation for departure, the telegraph wires had been cut and "The Judge and District Attorney were persuaded a week ago to take an excursion to the wilderness, and are now where no telegraph or mail can reach them."(43)
That evening, Savannah Customs Collector Hiram Roberts chartered the steamer Welaka, which sailed to St. Mary's at midnight carrying Savannah port surveyor Thomas Burke, U.S. Marshal William H. C. Mills, one deputy, and an inspector, with arrest warrants for López and Gonzales. They were accompanied by a reporter from the Savannah Morning News. Arriving in St. Mary's on Monday night, Burke was told that there were "from 500 to 1,500 persons collected at Jacksonville," and immediately went there. In the St. Johns River the Welaka met the steamer St. Mathews coming from Palatka. A passenger from the latter, carrying pistols, boarded the Welaka believing it to be the tardy Cuban expeditionary vessel. Investigations in Jacksonville on Tuesday morning, however, failed to reveal any armament or evidence of a large gathering of men.(44) The Savannah reporter wrote that according to "reliable information, obtained from respectable sources.... No principal officer of the contemplated expedition, has been in Jacksonville lately."(45) Before leaving that same day with the federal posse, the correspondent talked to about thirty men "who expressed themselves willing to join the expedition." He concluded that at Jacksonville "there are but few persons who do not sympathize with, and would aid the expedition as far as possible."(46) According to a local newspaper, the arrival of the federal authorities "caused an apparent hiatus in the programme of arrangements" of the expeditionaries.(47) The investigators did not find the large gathering of volunteers because it occurred at Empire Mills, on the east side of the river, a few miles south. Titus had checked into the Jacksonville Hotel on Monday with Sanderson, Saddler, Halliday and thirty-one-year-old Georgia-born John Madison, a Marion County farmer, but they apparently aroused no suspicion and most likely misinformed the authorities.(48)
The two Jacksonville weekly newspapers favored Cuban liberty. The Democratic News expressed its support and that of "a very large portion of the community" for the filibusters, hoping to "heartily rejoice to see Cuba in the full enjoyment of her liberty and independence."(49) The Whig Florida Republican reprinted an article from the American Telegraph chastising Horace Greeley's New York Tribune for regarding the affair as "nothing but the extension of the area of slavery." It argued that "the condition of both races would be improved by the independence of Cuba," especially for slaves, who would then be returned to colonize and civilize Africa.(50) The Florida Republican warned that Cuban annexation, by strengthening the South, might "embolden the North to clamor for the acquisition of Canada, thus bringing in another world of free-soil, as the price of our repeated effort to preserve the balance of power to ourselves."(51) It later recommended that Fillmore buy Cuba from Spain and urged that the island should be "enfranchised by purchase--by spontaneous revolution of her people--or by a revolution begun at their instance by foreign aid, and seconded and finished by themselves."(52) In contrast, the Northern Whig newspapers were highly critical of the filibusters, with one Iowa paper calling it a "Slaveocratic Crusade."(53) Many Northern Democratic publications favored the Cuban annexation cause, especially the anti-slavery Cincinnati Nonpareil. One of its editors, Richardson Hardy, was a Cárdenas veteran.(54) Democratic support was not unanimous, with some "locofoco" editors denouncing the Cuba expedition.(55)
The filibusterers in the Jacksonville Hotel departed after the federal authorities left the city, but they were soon back on May 9, when Titus arrived with company commanders David Province and Samuel St. George Rogers, and thirty-one-year-old Florida-born bachelor George Mooney, a member of Solomon's Lodge No. 20 and owner of Florida's first iron foundry.(56) Province was a twenty-four-year-old Kentucky-born Mexican War veteran and attorney residing in an Ocala boarding house.(57) Rogers was a twenty-six-year-old Tennessee-born attorney from Franklin County, affiliated with Masonic Marion Lodge No. 19 in Ocala.(58) They were joined there by Buckman, McQueen McIntosh, and apparent filibuster supporters Lewis F. Roux, Thomas Tumlin, twenty-seven-year-old Maine-born Charles E. Dunn and Benjamin Kimball, the latter two affiliated with Empire Mills.(59) Tumlin was a wealthy twenty-year-old Georgia planter.(60) McIntosh, who later served as attorney for the filibuster leadership, was a twenty-four-year-old Georgian who had recently moved with his family from their native state into the Jacksonville Hotel.(61)
The Savannah Morning News reported on May 19 that "During the past week there had arrived, in the neighborhood of Jacksonville, some three hundred men with upwards of 150 horses, from different parts of this State and Florida, whose intention it was to have joined the Cuban expedition." The newspaper estimated that since the start of the movement, "upwards of 1,500 men have from time to time arrived in the vicinity of Jacksonville, with a view to embark from that point."(62) In late May, a gathering in the Jacksonville Hotel included Titus, O'Hara, Buckman, Sanderson, Saddler, Reeves, Hawkins, Kimball, Tumlin, Gibbs, John L. Hopkins, Charles H. Dibble and Florida Militia Major Benjamin A. Putnam, a forty-nine-year-old Georgia-born lawyer from St. Augustine, among others.(63) Dibble, a Florida Militia cavalry veteran of the Second Seminole War, was a thirty-six-year-old New York-born merchant from Mandarin, where he owned a forty-acre farm and three slaves.(64) The filibuster leadership apparently decided to wait until López notified them of a better opportunity to renew their efforts.
López had secretly returned to New Orleans on May 7, while Gonzales was hidden by planters in coastal Georgia and Callawassie Island, South Carolina. The Cubans kept in contact by secret courier mail using code names. Gonzales wrote from Wilmington Island, three miles east of Savannah, on June 23 to Cirilo Villaverde, the General's secretary, that he was taking quinine to alleviate a "severe bilious fever."(65) Three days later, Gonzales arrived at the Jacksonville Hotel, twenty-four hours after Buckman.(66) He apparently met with Titus and others, took inventory of the salvaged weapons and munitions, and discussed possibilities for the next endeavor. López wrote to Gonzales on July 2, advising him to go recuperate his health in the sulphur baths of Virginia, and await further instructions from him.(67)
An annexationist uprising occurred in Puerto Príncipe, Cuba, on July 4, led by thirty-four-year-old attorney Joaquín de Agüero, with forty-four followers. The group was captured three weeks later, after various clashes with Spanish troops.(68) News of the rebellion did not reach the United States until July 22, and accounts of their defeat were not published until a month later, because the Spanish government suspended postal service in Puerto Príncipe.(69)
The day after reports of the Cuban insurrection surfaced, Buckman again checked into the Jacksonville Hotel. He was soon joined by Judge Farquahar Bethune, Peter Vantassel, and others. The seventy-year-old Florida-born Bethune, a Florida Militia veteran of the Second Seminole War, owned the New Ross plantation near Jacksonville.(70) Bethune later returned twice more to the Jacksonville Hotel in September, both times accompanied by Theodore O'Hara.(71) Cirilo Villaverde and Leopoldo Turla arrived in the Jacksonville Hotel on July 28.(72) The Cubans went to Empire Mills, where they found O'Hara with Titus. Six days later, Titus and Cureton sold Empire Mills to Hiram L. French through attorney McQueen McIntosh.(73) Titus invested his sale proceeds in acquiring equipment for the expedition. He then invited Villaverde to join Solomon's Lodge No. 20 free of charge.(74) Other Cubans, among them Angulo Guridi and Cárdenas expeditionary Juan Manuel Macías, reached Jacksonville on July 30. Four days later, another Cárdenas veteran, José Sánchez-Iznaga, arrived from New York to join them, after visiting Savannah. Agustín Manresa also arrived that day from New Orleans, with the last letter from López, dated July 24, saying that his expedition would leave on the 31st, reaching Jacksonville four days later.(75)
The steamer Pampero, bought for $60,000 by New Orleans Delta publisher Laurent J. Sigur, would carry the expedition. When the vessel reached New Orleans on July 29, Captain Armstrong Irvine Lewis reported that "his boilers were burnt out" from a collapsed fifteen-inch exhaust pipe.(76) Since López insisted on leaving immediately, a shoddy replacement pipe was installed while the steamer was being towed out to sea. The malfunction slowed the Pampero to a speed of eight knots, instead of its usual fifteen. The 450 expeditionaries arrived at Key West during sunset on August 10 and received an enthusiastic reception from the populace. U.S. Senator Stephen Mallory put on the general's finger a hair ring for good luck, and López was erroneously told by others that the Cuban insurrection had spread to thirteen towns. López called a war council and the officers informed him that they and the men "were now impatient to strike straight across for the nearest part of the Island, and unwilling to go round first to the St. Johns for the artillery, munitions and men there waiting...."(77) They agreed to send the steamer to Jacksonville later.
After landing the expedition in western Cuba, the Pampero returned to Key West under the Cuban flag in the early morning of August 13. Its name was obliterated from the hull, although Washington, D.C. appeared as the home port, and the ship's furniture and apparel bore the Pampero label. When Customs Inspector Alexander Patterson boarded to request the ship's papers, Captain Lewis provided a clearance signed by López three days earlier, identifying Lewis as a Cuban citizen and the vessel as the Cuban Liberator, cleared from the port of Cabañas to Savannah, with ballast, and listing the crew members. The inspector took the paper to the Customs Collector on shore, who immediately ordered the steamer seized, but Lewis quickly departed after receiving a warning.(78) The Pampero ran aground approaching the Cape Florida shore, while trying to land a party to chop wood for fuel. Two days were lost before a salvage vessel dislodged them. Several recruits, described by the U.S. District Attorney as "men of no character," boarded the steamer, which then headed for Jacksonville to embark the reinforcement expedition.(79)
The Jacksonville press supported the Cuban uprising. The News voiced its "warm sympathy in the cause of that oppressed people," and denounced that "the dread of seeing the power and influence of the South augmented by the annexation of Cuba, which must inevitably follow the establishment of her independence, is sufficient to arouse all the energies of the Administration in support of the Spanish despotism."(80) The Florida Republican stated, "we cannot, now that we are justified in believing that Cuba herself has started the ball of revolution, withhold our warm sympathy with the patriots in what must resolve itself into a struggle between Republicanism and colonial vassalage," and forecast that "'Cuban expeditions will start from a hundred points on the Atlantic."(81)
The filibuster call to arms was heard throughout northern Florida, prompting droves of adventurous and idealistic young men to descend upon Jacksonville. Sánchez-Iznaga, Saddler and son, Buckman, Reeves and Tumlin were back in the Jacksonville Hotel by the 13th.(82) In Ocala, David Province, Samuel St. George Rogers and William Fisher mustered three companies, numbering about 180 men, many "good riflemen" from the Florida Militia, marching to Jacksonville on the 16th.(83)
Villaverde, Macías and Turla left Titus in charge of expedition details in Jacksonville and on the 17th departed for Savannah by steamer to finalize arrangements there.(84) The newspapers announced on August 20 the successful López landing.(85) The next day, the Florida Republican published two articles about the Pampero, giving a laudatory description of the vessel that "can run away from the whole American Navy," if they tried to intercept it.(86) That evening, the steamer entered Doboy Sound, Georgia, and anchored abreast the lighthouse. On the morning of the 22nd, Darien Collector Armand Lifils went to investigate, and found that the Pampero needed coal or wood.(87) Captain Lewis went to Sapelo Island that day and later proceeded by canoe to Darien. The following morning, the 23rd, he took the mail steamer to Savannah, which landed the next day.(88) Arriving in Savannah with him were Cuban revolutionary priest Felix Varela, who traveled from St. Augustine on the steamer St. Matthews with David Yulee, the Democratic Florida Senator, recently defeated by Mallory for reelection, who espoused Cuban annexation.(89) Lewis gave the filibuster conspirators accounts of what had transpired and plotted their next move. He was instructed to pick up the Jacksonville Battalion and then proceed to Wilmington Island, to embark the Georgia Battalion. Lewis left Savannah on Monday, the 25th, on the steamer J. Stone, reaching the Pampero that evening. He probably had the latest edition of the Savannah Morning News reporting that up to four hundred filibusters were gathered in Jacksonville and its immediate vicinity. At dawn the next day, Lewis piloted the Pampero to the St. Johns River.(90)
Meanwhile, Gonzales learned of the Cuban uprising while recuperating his health in White Sulphur Springs, Virginia. He immediately departed by stagecoach, train and steamer, arriving in Charleston, South Carolina, on August 23.(91) Two days later, the Charleston Courier reported that Gonzales was supposed to be leading the Jacksonville contingent, but instead had taken the train to Columbia, South Carolina.(92) Gonzales returned to Charleston on the 26th.(93) He then travelled clandestinely to Wilmington Island, Georgia, because his April arrest warrant was still pending .(94)
The Florida Republican informed the Jacksonville citizens on the 28th that the Pampero was "now in the waters of Georgia, to receive reinforcements, and may momentarily pay this port a visit."(95) Two accompanying articles reprinted from newspapers dated a week earlier erroneously claimed that "Five hundred Creoles have left Havana to join López," that "Lopez's force is gaining from twelve to fourteen hundred men daily," and that an entire Spanish regiment had defected to López, who was causing massive casualties to the enemy. It did accurately report that fifty Americans accompanying López had been captured and executed by the Spanish soldiers who "committed horrible brutalities on the bodies."(96) These accounts inflamed passions against Spain, prompting local residents to attend a "large and enthusiastic" Cuban Meeting convened by trumpet call the next evening at the Jacksonville Court House. The purpose of the rally was for the citizens to "express their sympathy for the struggling Cubans and their approbation of the course of those patriotic citizens who are about to embark for Cuba to join the liberating army."(97)
The meeting was chaired by Florida Militia Colonel Samuel W. Spencer, a Maryland-born forty-four-year-old physician from Franklin County, who had resided in Florida for a decade.(98) Acting as secretary was thirty-four-year-old Judge Felix Livingston of the Duval County Probate Court and editor of the Jacksonville News. Patriotic speeches were delivered by James W. Bryant, J. McRobert Baker, David Province and Theodore O'Hara. Bryant, a thirty-nine-year-old Massachusetts attorney, was a colonel in the Florida Militia, a Whig state Representative from Duval County, a Unionist opposed to slavery and the founding Worshipful Master of Solomon's Lodge No. 20. Baker was a twenty-six-year-old Georgia-born attorney and a Lieutenant Colonel Judge Advocate of the Second Division of the Florida Militia. A committee formed to draft a preamble and resolutions was composed of Bryant, Baker, John Henry, George Mooney, Isidore V. Garnie and Isaac Swart. Garnie was a thirty-year-old bachelor clerk of the Circuit Court of Duval County, member of Solomon's Lodge No. 20, and Florida Militia Aide-de-camp to General Edward Hopkins. Swart was a forty-one-year-old New Yorker who arrived in town three years earlier as rector of St. John's Episcopal Church.(99) The committee wrote the following:
Whereas, the cause of freedom is dear to every American heart, and whereas the spirit of progress in civil liberty is now abroad among the nations of the earth, and whereas every enlightened people should sympathize with the oppressed of every clime who desire to be free, and whereas the people of Cuba are now in a state of actual revolution to obtain a Republican Government,--therefore
Resolved, That we heartily sympathize with the Cubans in their endeavors to establish a Republican Government.
2. That to those noble spirits who have volunteered to aid the oppressed Cubans, we extend our best wishes, in the name of Republican liberty, and bid them God-speed in their mission.
3. That we entertain sentiments of the deepest interest for those Cubans
who are now exiled from their native land, some of whom are now present
with us.
A collection committee was formed by Bryant, Charles Byrne and John C. Heming, "in aid of those who have volunteered their services in the Cuban cause." Byrne, was an Irish forty-eight-year-old physician and planter who had four slaves and was publisher of the Jacksonville News. Heming was an English thirty-six-year-old bookkeeper, owner of sixteen slaves and member of Solomon's Lodge No. 20. Judge Livingston was appointed to receive and distribute the donations. The public meeting closed with repeated cheers for the Cuban Revolution.(100)
Thirty six hours later, the Pampero arrived in Jacksonville, at ten o'clock on Sunday morning, August 31, to the cheers of a large crowd.(101) Many were curious to see the vessel described a week earlier as "the fastest thing on the water."(102) Macías immediately left Jacksonville for Savannah to relay the latest information.(103) Temporary Customs Inspector George H. Smith boarded the steamer and demanded its license. Captain Lewis gave evasive replies and claimed that the law allowed twenty four hours to produce it. Smith reported the situation to Customs Collector Isaiah David Hart, who urged him to stay on board the Pampero, but Smith replied that he "was not desirous to do so, as it was an unpleasant place." Smith returned to the vessel the following day and was told that the ship's papers had been in a box that was knocked overboard. Lewis again avoided answering the inspector´s questions.(104) The Pampero lacked papers, bore no name on its hull, flew an unregistered flag, and the newspapers had identified it as a Cuban filibuster vessel, but for unknown reasons, Collector Hart failed to impound it. The fifty-eight-year-old Georgia-born Hart was a wealthy planter who took arms against Spain in the 1812 Patriot Rebellion and nine years later founded Jacksonville. He had served as postmaster, court clerk, commissioner of pilotage, judge of elections, militia major during the Seminole War and Florida Territorial Whig senator. Described as "an eccentric character," Hart owned downtown real estate, a two-story boarding house, a plantation and forty-eight slaves.(105)
While in port, the Pampero was "being fitted out as a transport vessel by having some of the partitions knocked away between decks and places prepared for troops."(106) A visiting U.S. Army Lieutenant also saw "that the Cuban flag was flying in the streets of Jacksonville, and that under that flag daily drills took place of men avowedly organized for a Cuban expedition." The Pampero engine was repaired by Tuesday afternoon, September 2.(107) Titus paid the $400 Jacksonville Hotel bill for some fifty young volunteers who had signed the expedition muster roll.(108) The steamer was loaded at the wharf with wood fuel, stores and provisions, and embarked for Empire Mills during the late evening. The armament was boarded from a flat-load lighter on Pottsburg Creek in boxes marked "H.T.T." It consisted of "two [twelve-pound brass] cannons, two howitzers, 5 or 600 muskets, about 150 Yauger Rifles, about 150 cutlasses, 10 or 15 kegs of Powder, some Bombs and 50 or 60 kegs of cartridges and some [thirty] saddles and also about 75 men...." The mountain howitzers were mounted on trunnels on the Pampero ready for action.(109) Upon leaving Jacksonville, the military hierarchy was headed by Colonel Henry Theodore Titus, Lieutenant Colonel Theodore O'Hara and Major David Province. Captains Samuel Rogers and Andrew Colvin commanded companies.(110)
The Pampero halted for an hour at a plantation on the Nassau River, north of Jacksonville. The only two plantations accessible by steamer were on the upper bank, owned by John Christopher and Samuel Harrison. Since Colonel John P. Sanderson, who frequently stayed at the Jacksonville Hotel with the filibuster leadership, was married to a Harrison, the Pampero probably stopped at the latter place. The expedition then continued on the intracoastal waterway to Wilmington Island.(111) There, they found some seventy men of the Georgia Battalion, commanded by Captain Williamson, who arrived from Savannah on the steamer Jasper with Pampero owner Laurent Sigur and a stock of provisions.
Ambrosio Gonzales, hiding from the U.S. Marshal on Wilmington Island, was dismayed to see that the reinforcement expedition had been delayed more than a week in going to Cuba, that the engine continued to malfunction and that there was no coal or water on board for a sea voyage to Cuba. A dispute arose when Gonzales tried to take the leadership from Titus and demote him to a lieutenant colonelcy. Titus, who had a large financial investment in the affair, argued that he had received a letter from López in July, when Gonzales was ill, giving him command of the Jacksonville Battalion. The controversy was settled when Sigur sided with Titus.(112) Gonzales later wrote that "Without interfering with that movement already in the hands of others, I at once proceeded to raise the promised reinforcement," and returned to Charleston on September 3.(113)
Titus, meanwhile, was refusing to recognize the orders and directions given by Sigur, who had the Pampero's name restored to the hull and instructed Captain Lewis to take the steamer back to the Nassau River plantation. One third of the Pampero cargo was then transferred to the Jasper and returned to Savannah. Adjutant John L. Hopkins, Captain Andrew Colvin and others departed on the Jasper. Hopkins later rejoined the Pampero at Nassau Sound, while Sigur told Colvin, who stayed in Savannah, that he might go on another boat, the Monmouth. The Pampero was towed out of Warsaw Inlet by the J. Stone before dawn on September 4. Savannah U.S. Attorney Henry Williams was notified within hours of these events, and after telegraphing the Secretary of State, ordered the U.S. Revenue Cutter Jackson to the mouth of the St. Johns River.(114) The Pampero went to the Nassau River with the Jacksonville and Georgia battalions, which encamped inland, presumably on the Harrison plantation. The crated arms were distributed and the men drilled for about three days, while waiting for more volunteers to arrive.(115) The Jacksonville News reported on September 6 that López had been captured and executed and all who landed with him were either killed or captured.(116) As a result, half of the Titus force disbanded. Gonzales also gave up his reinforcement efforts in Charleston.
The Pampero, with some thirty filibusters, left the Nassau River at four p.m. on September 8 and was spotted by the cutter Jackson some ten miles away. The Jackson deployed full sail, closed in on the Pampero, and fired a warning shot which fell short. Instead of stopping, the Pampero "crew gave three hearty cheers, put on all steam, and went ahead," up the St. Johns River. The cutter remained outside the river bar, with its two guns loaded and its dozen crew members at battle stations, preventing an escape to sea.(117) The steamer passed Jacksonville at eight o'clock that evening. One hour later, Collector Hart sent a dispatch to St. Augustine Customs Collector J. M. Hanson requesting assistance. Moments later, Second Lieutenant Dudley Davenport arrived on a barge from the Jackson to inform Hart of his vessel's position. The Pampero continued south on the St. Johns, and secretly disgorged its cargo in the vicinity of Palatka, possibly at the Benjamin Hopkins plantation. Captain Lewis then hid the vessel a few miles further south in Dunn's Creek, four miles into the swamp, where the steamer "almost filled up the creek from side to side."(118)
At dawn the next day, Hart sent Customs Inspector Henry Drayton Holland in the Revenue boat up the St. Johns to search for the Pampero in all creeks and lakes until he found it. The forty-five-year-old Holland was a surgeon from South Carolina who arrived in Florida in 1835 to fight in the Seminole War. He later settled with his wife and seven children in Jacksonville and joined Solomon's Lodge No. 20.(119) Collector Hart used "every exertion to get other boats and crews" to join the pursuit, but found only one willing to do so, in which he dispatched Inspector Hogan. U.S. Army Lieutenant Anderson Merchant arrived in Jacksonville at six a.m. on September 10 with a detachment of twenty soldiers sent by the St. Augustine Customs Collector. Hart again telegraphed St. Augustine requesting that two artillery pieces be forwarded to Jacksonville to prevent the Pampero from sailing back out to sea.(120) The cannons arrived the next evening.
Also reaching Jacksonville on the 10th, from Savannah, was Pampero owner Laurent Sigur, accompanied by New Yorkers John L. O'Sullivan and J. N. Livingston. Sigur asked attorney McQueen McIntosh, as his legal adviser, to help them find and surrender the vessel. Some one hundred armed filibusters opposed to this plan decided to commandeer the Pampero, and went up the St. Johns in the steamer St. Mathews, "making threats that they would resist to the last." Alarmed by these events, St. Augustine Collector Hanson wrote to the State Department asking "that an armed force of at least 50 men be sent immediately to Jacksonville."(121)
When Sigur and McIntosh arrived at Picolata, the latter awoke Inspector Holland at the tavern and asked him to join their search for the Pampero. Upon reaching Palatka, they learned the vessel's location and went to Dunn's Creek the next morning. Sigur surrendered the steamer to Holland, offering to later produce its coasting license issued in New Orleans. Inspectors Holland and Hogan accompanied the Pampero to the Jacksonville wharf, where it was placed under guard at eight o'clock on the night of the 11th. The steamer crew and the filibuster leadership, including Titus and General Hopkins, checked into the Jacksonville Hotel.(122)
During the three days after the Pampero's surrender, filibuster officers O'Hara, Macías, Rogers, Province, Reeves, Williamson, Saddler and his son, registered in the Jacksonville Hotel.(123) Collector Hart, alarmed by the arrival of more than one hundred filibusters in Jacksonville, ordered the Captain of the Cutter Jackson to pull into port, as "there are quite a number of desperate fellows, around here," and then wrote of their presence to Treasury Secretary Thomas Corwin asking if he should arrest them.(124) The U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Florida, George W. Call, filed a libel against the Pampero on September 18 for violation of the Revenue Laws, and the trial was set for October 9 in the St. Augustine Court House.(125) Three days later, Call informed Secretary of State Daniel Webster that Henry Titus had concealed the filibuster armament and recommended that "should any prosecution be deemed advisable I would point out this person as a proper subject; both because he was the leader of the expedition, and because his conduct since amounts to an almost open defiance of the law."(126) The Jacksonville News editorialized against a "purely vindictive" prosecution of the "unfortunate" men or the Pampero, having "the sympathies and good wishes of this whole community."(127)
During the Pampero libel trial, Sigur, as claimant of the vessel, was represented by McQueen McIntosh and Benjamin A. Putnam of St. Augustine, along with Robert Charlton, John Elliott Ward and Owen, of Savannah.(128) Witnesses testifying on the 11th included expedition leaders Henry Titus, John Hopkins, Andrew Colvin and Jacob Rutherford.(129) That same day, the provisions and stores confiscated in the Pampero were sold by the U.S. Marshal in Jacksonville.(130) The testimony of all the witnesses, including Samuel Buffington, concluded on the 14th. Judge J. H. Bronson adjourned court until December 1. Although the statements of Colvin did not greatly differ from the others, on the last day of testimony he filed charges against Titus for "an assault and battery with intent to kill," in St. Johns County Circuit Court, in which case Hopkins and Rutherford had to post $200 bonds as material witnesses. The prosecutor was John P. Sanderson, the filibuster supporter, who dropped the charges eighteen months later when the witnesses failed to appear.(131)
Three weeks later, Collector Hart seized in Jacksonville a small schooner belonging to John Thompson, a member of Solomon's Lodge No. 20, containing "sixty-nine boxes of fixed ammunition, a quantity of new harness, cavalry saddles, and one brass piece."(132) Titus sued through attorney James A. Peden to recover these articles, which he got in December after the government failed to identify them.(133) Four months later, Titus sold the equipment to the Florida Militia.(134)
The final hearing of the Pampero trial began on December 1 with U.S. Attorney Call summarizing that the steamer carried a false registry, had violated federal law by being used in an armed expedition against Cuba, and should therefore be forfeited according to law. The defense attorneys argued the technicalities of the Neutrality Law, alleging that the Pampero was not an armed vessel since no weapons were found in it, but had "engaged in a mere transport service."(135) The court ruled on December 11 against the Pampero on both charges and ordered the U.S. Marshal to sell it "at public auction."(136) The Pampero was sold in Jacksonville on Saturday, January 17, 1852, to H. C. Templeton of New Orleans for $15,100, one fourth of what Sigur paid for it. The steamer's furniture and apparel went for $425 to Thomas O. Holmes, a Jacksonville merchant. The local press reported that, "There was little disposition by the public to bid high on the boat, as the friends of Mr. Segur [sic] expressed their wish to purchase for his interest."(137)
This essay has dispelled the myth that the filibuster movement was exclusively motivated by the expansion of slave territory, as purported by the Northern Whig press and as some historians continue to claim. Filibuster supporters included a heterogeneous group of Americans and European-born, Northerners and Southerners, unionists and secessionists, slave owners and those opposed to slavery, the local Whig and Democratic press, bachelors and family men, farmers and planters, wealthy merchants, attorneys and physicians. Freemasonry and the Florida Militia served to unify many of them, and while some filibusters sought adventure, fortune or fame, the majority of the Jacksonville populace enthusiastically expressed a desire for Cuban liberty.
Jacksonville was an important rallying point for the Cuban independence
movement in 1851. The filibuster activities in the city were reported in
newspapers throughout the United States. Volunteers from northern Florida
and southeast Georgia swarmed Jacksonville, creating an atmosphere of intrigue
and enthusiasm. They performed armed drills on the streets, marching behind
the Cuban flag, using the Jacksonville Hotel as their unofficial headquarters.
The last antebellum military expedition to free Cuba from Spain culminated
with the capture and sale of the Pampero in Jacksonville. Thus,
ended the first saga of Cuban filibustering in Jacksonville until Cuban
independence leader José Martí returned to the area in 1895.
1. Napoleon B. Broward, "Filibustering in Florida," The Florida Life, November 1897; F. Funston, "To Cuba as a Filibuster," Scribner's, September 1910; Richard V. Rickenbach, "Filibustering with the Dauntless," The Florida Historical Quarterly, April 1950, 231-253; and Samuel Proctor, "Filibustering Aboard the Three Friends," Mid-America, April 1956, 84-100.
2. José Ignacio Rodríguez, Estudio Histórico Sobre el Origen, Desenvolvimiento y Manifestaciones Prácticas de la Idea de la Anexión de la Isla de Cuba a los Estados Unidos de América. Havana: Imprenta La Propaganda Literaria, 1900; and Vidal Morales y Morales, Iniciadores y primeros mártires de la revolución cubana, 3 vols. Havana: Cultural S.A., 1931, reprint.
3. Herminio Portell Vilá, Narciso López y su época, 3 vols. Havana: Compañía Editora de Libros y Folletos, 1930-1958. Portell Vilá quoted the diary of Cirilo Villaverde, López's secretary, to portray Jacksonville as a filibuster rendezvous, without going into details. For example, Portell Vilá indicated that the expedition armament was hidden at the saw-mill of Henry Theodore Titus, but did not identify it as Empire Mills, at the mouth of Pottsburg Creek, nor provided a description of the weapons. He also omitted the role of the Jacksonville citizens on behalf of the Cuban independence cause, including a Court House rally, and did not describe the composition of the filibuster Jacksonville Battalion and the names and background of its leaders.
4. Anderson C. Quisenberry, Lopez's Expeditions to Cuba 1850-1851 (Louisville, Ky.: John P. Morton & Company, 1906), 75-76; and Robert Granville Caldwell, The Lopez Expeditions to Cuba 1848-1851 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1915), 92-93.
5. Basil Rauch, American Interest in Cuba: 1848-1855. New York: Columbia University Press, 1948.
6. Charles H. Brown, Agents of Manifest Destiny: The Lives and Times of the Filibusters (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1980), 76.
7. Josef Opatrny, U.S. Expansionism and Cuban Annexationism in the 1850s (Lewiston, N.Y.: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1993), 223.
8. James Esgate, Jacksonville, The Metropolis of Florida . Boston: Wm. G. J. Perry, 1885; T. Frederick Davis, History of Jacksonville, Florida and Vicinity 1513 to 1924. St. Augustine, Fla.: The Record Company, 1925; Pleasant Daniel Gold, History of Duval County Florida. St. Augustine, Fla.: The Record Company, 1928; Richard A. Martin, The City Makers. Jacksonville, Fla.: Covington Press, 1972; James Robertson Ward, Old Hickory's Town: An Illustrated History of Jacksonville. Jacksonville, Fla.: The Miller Press, 1985; Jules L. Wagman, Jacksonville and Florida's First Coast. Northridge, Ca.: Windsor Publications, 1988; George E. Buker, Jacksonville: Riverport--Seaport. Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press, 1992; and Stewart B. Dowless, "A History of Jacksonville, Florida to 1876." Masters Thesis, Appalachian State University, 1970.
9. The muster rolls of filibuster volunteers have never been found. They were apparently destroyed after the failure of the expedition to prevent their use by prosecuting federal authorities.
10. "Early Recollections of Minnie Titus Ensey, Youngest Daughter of Colonel Henry Theodore Titus, as Told to Her Daughter Fedora Ensey Grey," in Henry Theodore Titus Collection, North Brevard Public Library, Titusville, Florida; "Henry Theodore Titus: Famous or Infamous," Ibid.; and U.S. Department of State, Register of all Officers and Agents, Civil, Military, and Naval, in the Service of the United States (Washington: J. & G. S. Giddeon, Printers, 1845), 432.
11. "The Pampero Trial," Florida Republican (Jacksonville), 20 November 1851, 1.
12. "Arrivals at the Jacksonville Hotel," Jacksonville News, 14 September 1850, 3.
13. 1850 Florida Census, Duval County, 92; 1850 Florida Slave Census, Duval County, 79; "Jacksonville Hotel," Florida Republican, 5 June 1851, 4; and Proceedings of the Grand Lodge of the Most Ancient and Honorable Fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons, of the State of Florida; at its Several Grand Communications, from its Organization, A.D. 1830, to 1859, inclusive (New York: J. F. Brennan, 1859), 855. From now on, this Masonic source will serve to indicate all those mentioned in this article who were Freemasons. Samuel Buffington later testified in court regarding his role and that of his establishment in the filibuster movement. "The Pampero Trial," 1.
14. "Dissolution and Formation of Copartnership," Jacksonville News, 1 March 1851, 4; "Milling," Florida Republican, 24 April 1851, 2; and Richard A. Martin, "River and Forest: Jacksonville's Antebellum Lumber Industry," Northeast Florida History, 1992, 22.
15. "Arrivals at the Jacksonville Hotel," Florida Republican, 3 October 1850, 3.
16. 1850 Georgia Census, Richmond County, 499.
17. 1850 Florida Census, Duval County; 1850 Florida Agriculture Census, Duval County, 59; 1850 Slave Census, Duval County, 101; "Ortega," The Jacksonville Historical Society Papers 1954, 56-57.
18. "Arrivals at the Jacksonville Hotel," Florida Republican, 31 October 1850, 3; and "The Pampero Trial," 1.
19. 1850 Florida Census, Putnam County, 39.
20. 1850 Georgia Census, Camden County, 386; and Ambrosio Jose Gonzales, "The Cuban Crusade: A Full History of the Georgian and Lopez Expeditions," New Orleans Times Democrat, 6 April 1884, 9.
21. 1860 Florida Census, Hamilton County, 577.
22. "Arrivals at the Jacksonville Hotel," Florida Republican, 28 November 1850, 3.
23. 1850 Florida Census, Duval County; 1850 Florida Slave Census, Duval County, 83; Jacksonville News, 7 August 1850, 1.
24. 1850 Florida Census, Duval County, 252.
26. Antonio Rafael de la Cova, "Ambrosio Jose Gonzales: A Cuban Confederate Colonel." Ph.D. dissertation, West Virginia University, 1994.
27. Hamilton Fish to Millard Fillmore, 26 April 1851, Miscellaneous Letters of the Department of State, roll 179, National Archives, from now on cited as MLDS.
28. "The Cuban Prosecutions Abandoned," New Orleans Evening Picayune, 7 March 1851, 1; Logan Hunton to Daniel Webster, 7 March 1851, William R. Manning, Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States: Inter-American Affairs 1831-1860, Vol. XI--Spain (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1939) , 101; and "The Late Cuba State Trials," Democratic Review, April 1852, 307.
29. "Cuba: Rumored Outbreak," New Orleans Delta, 29 March 1851, 1.
30. "Another Cuban Expedition," Rome Courier (Georgia), 10 April 1851, 2.
31. J. Reneas to President of the U. States, 10 April 1851, MLDS.
32. "The President's Message," Jacksonville News, 3 May 1851, 2; and "Proclamation by the President of the United States," Florida Republican, 8 May 1851, 2.
33. "Arrivals at the Jacksonville Hotel," Florida Republican, 1 May 1851, 3.
34. 1860 Florida Census, Duval County, 260; and Keith V. Holland, Lee B. Manley and James W. Towart, The Maple Leaf: An Extraordinary American Civil War Shipwreck (Jacksonville, Fla.: St. Johns Archaeological Expeditions, Inc., 1993), 26.
35. 1850 Florida Census, Duval County; 1850 Florida Slave Census, Duval County, 125; and Florida Department of Military Affairs, State Arsenal, St. Augustine, Special Archives Publication 67, Florida Militia Muster Rolls Seminole Indian Wars, 26-27. From now on cited as FDMA.
36. 1850 Florida Census, Duval County, 92.
37. "That Cuba Expedition," Savannah Republican, 6 May 1851, 2.
39. "The Cuba Affair," New Orleans Evening Picayune, 20 May 1851, 1.
40. "The Descent on Cuba," New York Tribune, 2 May 1851, 5.
41. "Invasion of Cuba," Louisville Democrat, 8 May 1851, 3.
42. "Cuban Invasion," Florida Republican, 1 May 1851, 2.
43. "The Cuban Expedition," Savannah Morning News, 10 May 1851, 2.
44. Hiram Roberts to W. L. Hodge, 3 May 1851, MLDS; "The Welaka," Jacksonville News, 3 May 1851, 2.
45. "The Cuban Expedition--Cruise of the Welaka in search of the Expeditionaries," Savannah Morning News, 3 May 1851, 2.
47. "Cuban Invasion," Florida Republican, 1 May 1851, 2.
48. "Arrivals at the Jacksonville Hotel," Florida Republican, 1 May 1851, 3; and 1850 Florida Census, Marion County, 243.
49. "The Cuban Expedition," Jacksonville News, 3 May 1851, 2.
50. "The Invasion of Cuba," Florida Republican, 1 May 1851, 2.
52. "Cuba," Ibid., 15 May 1851, 2.
53. "The Cuban Invasion," Burlington Hawk-Eye (Iowa), 30 May 1850, 2.
54. Cincinnati Nonpareil, 15 May 1850, 2; and Richardson Hardy, The History and Adventures of the Cuban Expedition. Cincinnati: Lorenzo Stratton, 1850.
55. Louisville Democrat, 19 May 1851, 2. Locofocos were a radical group of New York Democrats organized in 1835 in opposition to the regular party organization.
56. 1850 Florida Census, Duval County, 92; and "Jacksonville Foundry," Jacksonville News, 30 August 1851, 2.
57. 1850 Florida Census, Marion County, 230; and Florida Sentinel (Tallahassee), 9 September 1851, 2.
58. 1850 Florida Census, Franklin County, 324.
59. "Arrivals at the Jacksonville Hotel," Florida Republican, 15 May 1851, 3.
60. 1860 Georgia Census, Cass County, 687.
61. 1850 Florida Census, Duval County, 92.
62. "From Florida--More Arrivals of Troops at Jacksonville," Savannah Morning News, 19 May 1851, 2.
63. "Arrivals at the Jacksonville Hotel," Florida Republican, 29 May 1851, 3; and 1850 Florida Census, St. Johns County, 399.
64. 1850 Florida Census, Duval County, 203; 1850 Florida Agriculture Census, Mandarin District, 61; 1850 Florida Slave Census, 109; and FDMA, Publication 69, 18, 21.
65. Herminio Portell Vilá, Narciso López y su época, Vol. III (Havana: Compañía Editora de Libros y Folletos, 1958), 228-229.
66. "Arrivals at the Jacksonville Hotel," Florida Republican, 3 July 1851, 3.
67. Ambrosio José Gonzales, Manifesto on Cuban Affairs Addressed to the People of the United States (New Orleans: Daily Delta, 1853), 10-11; and _____, "The Cuban Crusade," 9.
68. Jorge Juárez Cano, Hombres del 51 (Havana: Imprenta"El Siglo XX," 1930), 7, 58.
69. "Further Cuban News," New Orleans Evening Picayune, 18 August 1851, 1; and Ibid., 21 August 1851, 1.
70. 1850 Florida Census, Duval County, 102; FDMA, Publication 69, 67; and Davis, History of Jacksonville, 67-68.
71. "Arrivals at the Jacksonville Hotel," Florida Republican, 18 September and 9 October 1851, 3.
72. "Arrivals at the Jacksonville Hotel," Florida Republican, 7 August 1851, 3.
74. Herminio Portell Vilá, Narciso López y su época, I (Havana: Cultural, S.A., 1930), 76-77.
75. Portell Vilá, Narciso López, III, 483, 656.
76. William Freret, Correspondence Between the Treasury Department, &c., in Relation to the Cuban Expedition, and William Freret, Late Collector (New Orleans: Alex, Levy & Co., 1851), 8, 45.
77. Louis Schlesinger, "Personal Narrative of Louis Schlesinger, of Adventures in Cuba and Ceuta," Democratic Review, September 1852, 217-219.
78. United States vs The Steamer Pampero, District Court of the United States for the North District of Florida, Opinion and Decision on Libel & information for violation of the Revenue Laws, 12 December 1851, RG 206, Solicitor of the Treasury, Letters Received, U.S. Attorneys, Clerks of Courts, and Marshals, Florida 1846-April 1863, Box 19, National Archives; William R. Hackley to Daniel Webster, 23 August 1851, MLDS; and "The Pampero Trial," 1.
79. William R. Hackley to Daniel Webster, 23 August 1851, MLDS; "The Cuba Expedition," Charleston Courier, 25 August 1851, 2; "The Pampero's Trip to Cuba," Cincinnati Nonpareil, 5 September 1851, 1; and "The Pampero Case," New Orleans Delta, 23 December 1851, 4.
80. "The Cuba News," Jacksonville News, 2 August 1851, 2; and "The Cuban Revolution," Ibid., 9 August 1851, 2.
81. "Cuba Revolution," Florida Republican, 14 August 1851, 2.
82. "Arrivals at the Jacksonville Hotel," Florida Republican, 28 August 1851, 2.
83. "More Troops for Cuba," Savannah Morning News, 22 August 1851, 2. The twenty-six-year-old Fisher had joined Captain Johnson's Company at Fort Brooke, Tampa, in 1847 as Second Lieutenant to fight in the Mexican War, but his unit served stateside relieving a regular army force that went to Mexico. When Johnson's Company was discharged after one year, Fisher reorganized many volunteers into Fisher's Company, which he commanded with the rank of captain at Fort Brooke until their disbandment six months later. See: FDMA, Publication 9, Compiled Muster and Service Records Florida Militia Volunteers, War with Mexico 1846-1848.
84. "Passengers," Savannah Morning News, 18 August 1851, 2.
85. "Landing of Gen. Lopez," Evening Picayune, 20 August 1851, 1.
86. "The Steam Ship Pampero," Florida Republican, 21 August 1851, 2.
87. Armand Lifils to Henry Williams, 28 August 1851, MLDS.
88. "The Pampero's trip to Cuba," Cincinnati Nonpareil, 5 September 1851, 1.
89. "Passengers," Savannah Morning News, 25 August 1851, 2; and Rauch, American Interest in Cuba, 45.
90. Armand Lifils to Henry Williams, 28 August 1851, MLDS.
91. "Arrivals at the Charleston Hotel," Charleston Courier, 25 August 1851, 2.
92. "The Cuba Expedition," Ibid.
93. "Arrivals at the Charleston Hotel," Ibid., 26 August 1851, 2.
94. Gonzales, Manifesto on Cuban Affairs, 10.
95. "The Cuba News," Florida Republican, 28 August 1851, 2.
96. "Important Cuba Intelligence," Ibid.
97. "Cuban Meeting," Jacksonville News, 30 August 1851, 2.
98. Ibid.; and 1850 Florida Census, Franklin County, 328.
99. Data on the Cuban Committee members obtained from Jacksonville newspapers, the 1850 Florida Census, and Proceedings of the Grand Lodge of the State of Florida.
100. "Cuban Meeting," Jacksonville News, 30 August 1851, 2.
101. "Ho, for Cuba!," Jacksonville News, 6 September 1851, 2; and "The Pampero," Charleston Courier, 6 September 1851, 2.
102. "Rumored Plans of Gen. Lopez," Jacksonville News, 23 August 1851, 2.
103. "Passengers," Savannah Morning News, 1 September 1851, 3.
105. 1850 Florida Census, Duval County, 90; 1850 Florida Slave Census, Duval County, 77; FDMA, Publication 67; Davis, History of Jacksonville, 53-54, 57-58; "Isaiah David Hart, City Founder," Jacksonville Historical Society Papers, 1954, 1-6; "A Remarkable Man," Ibid.,1969, 42-46
106. Henry Williams to Secretary of State, 4 September 1851, MLDS.
107. "Ho, for Cuba!," Jacksonville News, 6 September 1851, 2.
108. "The Pampero Trial," 1. The muster rolls used in the López expeditions have not been found.
109. United States vs. The Steamer Pampero, 11 December 1851; and "The Pampero Trial," 1.
110. "Ho, for Cuba!," Jacksonville News, 6 September 1851, 2.
111. "The Pampero--The Finale," Jacksonville News, 13 September 1851, 2; and "The Pampero Trial," 1.
113. Gonzales, Manifesto, 10; and "Arrivals at the Charleston Hotel," Charleston Courier, 4 September 1851, 2.
114. Henry Williams to Secretary of State, 4 September 1851, MLDS.
115. Ibid.; and "The Pampero Trial," 1.
116. "Important from Cuba!," Jacksonville News, 6 September 1851, 3.
117. "Chasing the Pampero," Florida Republican, 11 September 1851, 2; and Savannah Republican, 14 September 1851, 2.
118. Isaiah D. Hart to Secretary of the Treasury Thomas Corwin, 13 September 1851, MLDS.
119. Dr. Holland was elected mayor of Jacksonville in 1852 and died in 1860. Webster Merritt, "Physicians and Medicine in Early Jacksonville," The Jacksonville Historical Society Papers 1947, 107-108; and 1850 Florida Census, Duval County, 92.
120. Isaiah D. Hart to Treasury Secretary Thomas Corwin, 13 September 1851, MLDS; J. M. Hanson to Acting Secretary of State W. S. Derrick, 9 September 1851, Ibid.; "Chasing the Pampero," Florida Republican, 11 September 1851, 2; "Arrivals at the Jacksonville Hotel," Ibid., 18 September 1851, 3; Charleston Courier, 15 September 1851, 2; and "Capture of the Pampero," Georgia Journal and Messenger (Macon), 17 September 1851, 2.
121. J. M. Hanson to Acting Secretary of State W. S. Derrick, 11 September 1851, MLDS.
122. Isaiah D. Hart to Treasury Secretary Thomas Corwin, 13 September 1851, MLDS; and "The Pampero" and "Arrivals at the Jacksonville Hotel," Florida Republican, 18 September 1851, 2, 3.
123. "Arrivals at the Jacksonville Hotel," Florida Republican, 18 September 1851, 3.
124. Isaiah D. Hart to I. J. Morrison, 12 September 1851, MLDS; and _____, to Treasury Secretary Thomas Corwin, 14 September 1851, Ibid.
125. "Notice," Florida Republican, 2 October 1851, 3.
126. George W. Call to Daniel Webster, 21 September 1851, MLDS.
127. "The Pampero," Jacksonville News, 27 September 1851, 2. Reprinted in the New Orleans Delta, 9 October 1851, 1.
128. Ibid., 18 October 1851, 2; and "The Pampero," New Orleans Delta, 21 October 1851, 1.
130. "From Florida," Savannah Morning News, 14 October 1851, 2.
131. The State of Florida vs. Henry T. Titus, 14 October 1851, Circuit Court Papers, St. Johns County, Florida, box 163, folder 41, St. Augustine Historical Society.
132. "Fillibusterism," Florida Republican, 13 November 1851, 2.
133. "The Pampero Case," New Orleans Delta, 23 December 1851, 4.
134. "Payments to Titus, 3 April 1852," Florida Senate Journal, 6th Session, 22 November 1852, 116.
135. "The Pampero Case," Jacksonville News, 6 December 1851, 3.
136. "Pampero," Florida Republican, 18 December 1851, 3: "Sale of the Steamer Pampero," Jacksonville News, 20 December 1851, 3.
137. "Sale of the Pampero," Florida Republican, 22 January 1852, 2.