John Milton was an American lawyer and politician. He was the fifth Governor of Florida during the American Civil War.
Background
John Milton was born on April 20, 1807, in Jefferson County, Georgia, United States. He was the son of Elizabeth Robinson and Homer Virgil Milton, a planter and an officer in the War of 1812. His great-grandfather, John Milton, emigrated from England and, about 1730, settled in Halifax County, North Carolina, from which his grandfather, also John Milton, removed to Georgia, whereas the first secretary of state he saved the records from the British and in 1789 received two votes of the Georgia electors for the presidency.
Education
John was educated in the academy at Louisville, Georgia. Milton studied law in the office of Roger L. Gamble of Louisville and after admission to the bar began the practice of his profession at that place.
Career
Milton removed to Columbus, Georgia, and a little later to Mobile, Alabama. His law practice continued at this place and at New Orleans until 1846 with a two years' interruption when he served as a captain of Mobile volunteers in the Seminole War.
In 1846, he removed to Florida, settling down on his plantation near Marianna, in Jackson County, where he made his home until his death. He was a Democratic elector in 1848 and in 1849 was elected to the state Senate. His claim to remembrance rests on his record as war governor of Florida. He was inaugurated governor in 1861 and began his term inauspiciously by denouncing the state secession convention for assuming legislative functions and by refusing to recognize the executive council that the convention had created to limit the governor's powers.
During his term as governor, his time was so taken up with military affairs that he had scant opportunity to show his ability in any other field. Since Florida's secession from Union was after the election, Milton was the legal governor of Florida under the laws of both the United States and the Confederacy. He actually was the one, as Governor-elected, to read the Ordinance of Secession to the crowd gathered at the Capitol in Tallahassee, thus making Florida the third state to leave the United States.
On the eve of the end of the war and under the stress of having Florida being penniless and occupied by Union Forces, Milton addressed his legislature to say he "preferred death to a reunion with those Yankees." At this point, Milton left Tallahassee and returned to his family at Sylvania Plantation. Then on April 1, 1865, Milton, at the age of 57 years, pointed a pistol to his head for a fatal self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Achievements
Politics
A zealous advocate of secession, John Milton had been outspoken on the position of states' rights for nearly 30 years. States' Rights meaning a state had the right to decide certain issues including the right to own slaves to work the huge plantations of the South.
Milton was an earnest advocate of war-time prohibition both because he deplored drunkenness and because he wished corn to be conserved for other purposes. He approved, if he did not originate, the Florida law providing for the issue of paper money secured by the public land of the state. While not hesitating at times to assert the doctrine of state rights with such vigor as to cause Secretary Benjamin moments of acute distress, the records indicate that on the whole, he gave the Confederacy a greater measure of cooperation than was usual among Southern governors.
He resisted the recruiting of cavalry in the state on the ground that Florida topography was not suitable for cavalry activities. He differed from the Confederate military authorities in regard to the abandonment of certain Florida ports and the defense of others. Particularly he insisted on the defense of Apalachicola, and, unable to obtain Confederate cooperation to that end, he proposed to Alabama and Georgia a joint defense of the port. He constantly, though vainly, urged that the Confederacy give him charge of military affairs in Florida and more than once hinted to Davis that he would rather be a Confederate brigadier-general than a civilian governor. Failing in all these things, he did his utmost to raise troops for the Confederacy and to keep them supplied with clothing and hospital supplies. He met the Confederate requisitions for money promptly and, throughout the war, received Confederate money for taxes to the practical exclusion of the Florida paper itself.
He was vigorous in the use of the militia for the defense of the state and is entitled to credit for the fact that Florida was the only Southern state whose capital remained uncaptured at the end of the war. It must be conceded, however, that the security of Florida during the war may have been due less to defensive measures than to its lack of importance. As the fortunes of the Confederacy ebbed the governor remained defiant opposed all peace proposals that left the independence of the Confederacy unrecognized, and upon the collapse of the Southern cause, his mind gave way and he destroyed his own life.
Connections
Milton had four children by his marriage to Susan Amanda Cobb on December 9, 1826, and, after her death, eleven children by his marriage to Caroline Howze in 1840.