After the Civil War began in 1861, a north-south railroad became critical to the Confederacy for connecting existing Florida and Georgia lines and bypassing Union blockades at Florida ports. The Confederate government ordered construction of a 49-mile line between Live Oak on the Pensacola & Georgia rail line in Suwannee County, Florida, and the Atlantic & Gulf Railroad line in Lawton (Dupont), Georgia. By 1862, the roadbed was mostly complete, along with bridges across the Suwannee and Alapaha Rivers, but a lack of available iron for rails stopped construction. After the David Levy Yulee Florida Railroad from Fernandina to Cedar Key was partially destroyed during the war, the Confederacy authorized removal of rails from that line to complete the north-south route. The line was not finished until March 1865, one month before the Confederate army surrendered at Appomattox, Virginia. Known as the Florida Branch, it led to the establishment of the towns of Live Oak and Jasper, later became part of the Plant System and then the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad, and was abandoned and stripped of its rails by the late 1980s.