by Captain D.W. Gwynn. Some reports show the cadets played a minor role in the battle defending artillery pieces. The combined Confederate forces defeated attacking Union forces leaving Tallahassee as the only Confederate capital east of the Mississippi River not to fall to Union forces.
At the surrender of Florida, Union military forces disarmed the cadets and used campus buildings as barracks until September 1865. The school then reopened and resumed its academic purpose. The FSU Army Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) is authorized to display a battle streamer Natural Bridge 1865. FSU is one of four institutions that can display a military battle streamer.
=== First state university ===
In 1883, the institution officially known as the West Florida Seminary was organized by the Board of Education as the Literary College of the University of Florida. (In the terminology of the time, schools were divided into seminaries and literary institutions; the name does not imply a focus on literature.) Under …
