150 Years Ago-- December 19, 1863: Action At St. Andrew's Bay, Fla.

DECEMBER 19TH:

Expedition from USS Restless, Bloomer and Caroline proceeded up St. Andrew's Bay, Florida (current day Panama City), to continue destroying salt works. They destroyed works not already destroyed by Confederates when they heard they were about to be attacked.

Reported they had "cleared the three arms of the extensive bay of salt works....Within the past ten days 250 salt works, 35 covered wagons, 12 flatboats, 2 sloops (5 tons each), 6 ox carts, 4,000 bushels of salt, 268 buildings at the salt works, 529 iron kettles averaging 150 gallons each, 105 iron boilers for boiling brine, and it is believed that the enemy destroyed as many more to prevent us from doing so."

That is quite a huge salt making business going on there and, a lot of Union destruction.

--Old B-R'er