The town of Columbus stood near the Confederate earth-works fort that guarded the old RR bridge. There was once a Stage Stop there and the town benefited from it along with the RailRoad, Ferry, Sawmill, and the Steamboat traffic. The cemetery, considered one of Florida's oldest, is the only evidence left. It can be found on one of the nature trails. Nearby the earth fort was constructed by Confederate soldiers to protect the RR bridge from Union attack. This was very important to the Confederate forces since their meat at the time came almost entirely from Florida range cattle, sugar, and salt. Yes, there were plenty of Cowboys in Florida raising cattle left from Spanish occupation. The Union knew that if they could destroy the RR bridge it would shut off the meat supply for the troops. Union troops were sent from Federally occupied Jacksonville to destroy the bridge but were engaged at Olustee, in Columbia County, and defeated in February of 1864. Submitted by: Mike Woodfin

The Columbus Post Office was established on February 17, 1842 and later moved across the Suwannee to serve the new sawmill town Ellaville in 1867. Mike Woodfin

I am writing a book about New Jersey's Civil War surgeons, and one of them Dr. Alvin Satterthwait attended Philadelphia College of Medicine.  One of his classmates was a Florida resident, Dr. Silas Taff Overstreet.  Dr. O and Dr. S graduated in 1859 and headed to Columbus, Florida to practice medicine together.  Satterthwait stayed for about a year until the "political troubles" caused him to return North.  When the war began, Dr. O joined the Hamilton Blues raised in Hamilton FL (a militia I think) and then enrolled in Co. I, 2nd FLorida infantry and was put on duty in a Richmond VA Hospital.  After the war, he married Elizabeth Hardy Goodbread of Suwannee Co and practiced medicine in Live Oak until about 1900. He remarried in 1877 to Adaline Lang.   He died there in 1905. 

Cemetery - Courtesy MikeWoodfin

Cemetery - Courtesy MikeWoodfin

Cemetery - Courtesy MikeWoodfin

This an 1880 picture of the covered Railroad Bridge the Confederate forces were protecting from Union attack. photo courtesy Florida State Pictorical Archieves

Original formerly covered railroad bridge, still in use
Coutesy Jim Pike