At Natural Bridge Battlefield, memorials and reenactments keep alive the spirits of the soldiers who perished on this spot during one of the last and largest battles of the Civil War in Florida.
Resources
Overview
Location: Woodville
Lat-Lon: 30.285086,-84.153603
Fees: $3 per vehicle
Open: 8 AM until sunset daily
Leashed pets welcome
Location
About the Park
An important site in Florida’s Civil War history, The Battle of Natural Bridge speaks to a time when the Confederacy was close to collapse.
On March 6, 1865, Union troops marching north from their landing point at the St. Marks Lighthouse met the Florida 5th Cavalry and cadets from the West Florida Seminary (now Florida State University).
The Confederate troops routed the Union attack, and are credited with keeping Tallahassee the only Confederate capital east of the Mississippi that did not fall into Union hands during the war.
Some historians believe that the Union objective was to capture the key port of St. Marks, and they came to this spot to utilize the Natural Bridge, a geological feature where the St. Marks River dives underground for a quarter mile.