1914 Civil War Veterans Reunion - Jacksonville, Florida

For this video, I colorized it using AI optimization software, interpolated it to 60 frames/second, speed-adjusted it and refined it with De Blur, Sharpness and Stabilization.

This is the Civil War Veterans Reunion in Jacksonville, Florida, filmed May 6-9, 1914. Some footage was omitted due to it not colorizing very well (for example, too many light glares will cause this). You can find the full-length, unedited black and white version of this video on my channel as well.

An estimated one million men served at one point or another in the Confederate military during the Civil War. About 15,000 of them came from Florida, a very significant portion of the sparse, agrarian population.

By 1914, fifty years after the war, only about 2,000 actual veterans were still alive and active in the largest interstate veterans group, the United Confederate Veterans Organization. Still, an estimated 48 thousand people came to Jacksonville in May of that year to observe the anniversary and meet the remaining veterans.

Florida was the third state to secede from the Union, and the second from the last to rejoin. It was an important source of fish, agricultural products and beef for the Southern war effort, but for the most part Union forces controlled the coastal and the ports throughout the war. There were several minor engagements and the one larger battle, at Olusee in 1864, where a Union advance was thwarted. While that was the last time the north initiated combat in Florida that is not the same as evacuating the state.

Interestingly, the war did help Florida grow in later years. Many veterans, from the north and south, who served here found themselves attracted to the state in the 1870’s and 1880's, both because of the climate and because of the agricultural