1863 Florida's 1st congressional district special election

A special election to the Confederate States House of Representatives for Florida's 1st congressional district was held February 2, 1863.

The winning candidate would serve the remainder of a two-year term in the Confederate States House of Representatives to represent Florida in the 1st Confederate Congress from February 3, 1863, to February 18, 1864.

Background
In the 1861 congressional election, James Baird Dawkins was elected to the Confederate States House of Representatives. However, Dawkins resigned on December 8, 1862 after Governor John Milton appointed him as a state judge.

Candidates

 * James E. Broome, state senator and former governor of Florida
 * James Gettis, former state representative
 * George E. Hawes, former state senator
 * W. M. Ives, editor of the Lake City Columbian
 * John Marshall Martin, planter

Campaign
Unique to this election, none of the five candidates came from West Florida, which had been the state's political powerhouse, showing the waning influence of Pensacola. Martin and Ives were both from North Central Florida; Martin was a planter and Confederate States Army captain from Ocala, while Ives was an influential newspaper editor from Lake City. Broome, the former governor of Florida, was from Tallahassee. Gettis, a former state representative from Tampa, was famous in Florida for his actions during the Battle of Tampa. The only candidate out of the five without a major reputation in the state was Hawes, a former state senator from Orlando, which was still a small frontier town at this time.