The 7th Florida Infantry Regiment was a Civil War regiment from Florida organized at Gainesville, in April 1862. Its companies were recruited in the counties of Bradford, Hillsborough, Alachua, Manatee, and Marion.
Organization and Service history
During the war it served in the Florida Brigade of the Army of Tennessee. The nucleus of Company K of the regiment was made up of men who served as a militia Coast Guard company before the war. One member of the unit described the diverse nature of the company by saying "it is composed of Yankees, Crackers, Conchs, Englishmen, Spaniards, Germans, Frenchmen, Italians, Poles, Irishmen, Swedes, Chinese, Portuguese, Brazilians...also Scotsmen, Welshmen, and some Half Indians."[1]
Former Governor of Florida, Madison S. Perry served as colonel of the regiment until April 1863.[2][3]
The 7th took an active part in the arduous campaigns of the army from Chickamauga to Nashville, then fought its last battle at Bentonville.[4]
Companies
Company
County
Nickname
Commander
A
Alachua
Capt. Roland Thomas (resigned, replaced by Henry F York)
↑Despite being raised from Hillsborough County, Company K was known as the Key West Avengers because many of the men in the unit were mariners and fisherman from Key West.[9]
↑Waters, Zack C. (2023). "A wilderness of destruction": Confederate guerillas of east and south Florida, 1861–1865. Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press. p.15. ISBN978-0881468816.
↑Sheppard, Jonathan C. (2012). By the Noble Daring of Her Sons: The Florida Brigade of the Army of Tennessee. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press. pp.118–119. ISBN978-0817317072.
