In 1845, sparsely populated Florida had been admitted to the United States along with Iowa in an ill-fated attempt to keep the balance between slave and free states and ultimately avert the civil war that many felt was on the horizon. When hostilities began in 1861, Florida's Pensacola Bay area with its magnificent harbor, valuable navy yard and impressive fortifications became hotly contested by Union and Confederate forces. While Pensacola's lack of navigable rivers and limited rail access had kept it from developing into one of the country's major commercial centers, its location provided the perfect base for hostile strikes on nearby Mobile and New Orleans. Focusing on the town of Pensacola and the small residential villages of Warrington and Woolsey, this volume details the events which took place in and around Pensacola Bay immediately before and in the early months of the Civil War. It takes a look at the various people involved and how their personalities and attributes shaped the course of events. The work presents happenings from a contemporary viewpoint rather than how they were reported and retold at a later time. More than 70 period photographs and illustrations complete the depiction of events.