Defeat in Victory: Yankee Experience in Early Civil War Jacksonville
“March-April 1862. Diaries. Keene was a Northerner who had recently come to Florida to operate a hotel. He joined a local militia unit at the start of the secession crisis but resigned when it entered state service. In Jacksonville, where Union and Confederate sentiment was divided, the Unionists felt secure upon the arrival of Federal troops early in March 1862. Before the Confederate troops left, however, they burned sawmills and Keene's hotel. In April, when Union troops abandoned Jacksonville, Keene and the Unionists fled with a few possessions.”