With the Confederate forces weakened in Escambia County, Union General Alexander Asboth set out from Fort Barrancas decided to strike the rebels a blow north of Pensacola. On July 21, 1864 he sent a Union force out of Barrancas for the purpose of engaging the enemy somewhere along the Pensacola road to Pollard, Alabama. His infantry crossed Bayou Grande in scows at Bragg’s Bridge, while his artillery and wagon train went around the head of the bayou escorted by the cavalry. The two forces joined each other just before dark as they reached Jackson’s Bridge at Bayou Chico. They marched all night reaching Camp Gonzalez (today's Gonzalez community off Highway 29) by morning.
As the Union force approached the camp at Fifteen Mile Station they encountered more and more Confederate pickets from the 7th Alabama Cavalry Regiment commanded by Colonel Joseph Hodgson. The pickets put up a stiff fight before the Union forces drove them back toward their own lines. Asboth found that the Confederates had built a new redoubt of heavy timbers and named the fortification Fort Hodgson after its commander. Asboth placed his men in a battle line across the front of the fort with a battery on the crest of a hill and ordered them to zero in on the bristling redoubt. For half an hour the Union artillery lobbed shells inside the fort while the infantry made a spirited advance, driving the southern forces from their fortifications. The attackers overran the fort and drove the Southerners up the road for about three miles. Eight Confederates were captured, one of which was a forty-day substitute who had been mortally wounded.
t was reported that the Confederates retreated north with around thirty wounded comrades on their horses at a fast gait. Ironically one those seriously wounded was 23-year old Lieutenant William Kopmann Hyer from Pensacola, Florida. In the meantime, the Union troops set fire to the heavy timbers of the fort along with all of the surrounding shelters. Onto the bonfire they threw all of the commissary and quartermaster stores captured in the attack. With the rebel encampment still burning, Asboth marched north at 8:00 o’clock on the morning of July 23, 1864 for about six miles toward Pollard. But then word was received that the Southerners had damaged the bridge across Pine Barren Creek. Ashboth knew that both sides of the bridge was covered by good ole Florida swamps making circumvention of the bridge next to impossible. Furthermore, southerners were dug in on the north side of the creek and had four pieces of artillery loaded and waiting for him. More news was received that more Southern cavalry was heading their way convincing Asboth to forego the expedition and beat a hasty retreat back into Fort Barrancas.
Union General Alexander Asboth (1811-1868)
Battle of Ft. Hodgson, Gonzalez, Florida 1864