’I Have Never Seen the Hour in Which I Regretted Having Enlisted’: The Motivation Bolstering Union Occupation Troops at the Dry Tortugas and Key West, Florida, 1862–1864

During the American Civil War, many Union volunteers occupied Southern towns after conquering them through active military campaigns, but the 90th and 91st New York, 47th Pennsylvania, and 7th New Hampshire Volunteer Infantry occupied Key West and Fort Jefferson (Dry Tortugas), Florida as their first assignment prior to experiencing combat. Though they were stationed in the most remote locations that the U.S. held in the South, these volunteers felt connected to the Union war effort and to the issues that it inspired. The New York, Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire soldiers revered commanding officers of the Regular Army and believed that their assignment to garrison these strategic military and economic points was compatible with the American conceptualization of the citizen-soldier and integral to the Union cause.