“The Day of the Big Gun Shoot”: The Union Occupation of Beaufort and the Rise of the 1st South Carolina Volunteers

Abstract

This essay details the events surrounding the Union Army’s occupation of Beaufort, South Carolina, during the American Civil War, and the opportunities that arose for the area’s Black population. Although the Reconstruction era did not formally begin until after the war ended, reconstruction efforts began well before Robert E. Lee capitulated. The Battle of Port Royal on November 7, 1861, off the coast of the South Carolina’s Sea Islands and subsequent Union occupation resulted in an exodus of the region’s white population, leaving over 10,000 enslaved people seemingly free. Almost immediately after the Union victory, a myriad of northerners saw an opportunity not only to employ the area’s enslaved people, but to test their self-sustaining abilities. Much is written about this “Port Royal Experiment”; however, little literature exists on one of the greatest achievements during the experiment: the creation of the 1st South Carolina Volunteers. Historians usually treat the Union Army’s first formal Black regiment as a side note to the Port Royal Experiment. To the contrary, the creation and military service of the 1st South Carolina Volunteers was a watershed moment in the transition of South Carolina enslaved people to freedmen to soldiers.