Documented Mitchelville

April 12, 1861

The Confederates fire on Fort Sumter. The Civil War begins. President Lincoln orders a Union blockade of Southern ports.

April, 1861

South Carolina Governor Pickens orders General P. T. Beauregard to assess Confederate coastal defenses.

May 1861

Three runaway slaves enter Fortress Monroe, VA. General Benjamin Butler refuses to return the men to their owner. He calls them "contraband of war."

July, 1861

Construction of Fort Walker and Fort Beauregard begins at Port Royal Sound.

August 5, 1861

Captain Samuel DuPont and General Thomas W. Sherman receive orders to prepare an expedition to seize a harbor along the South Carolina coast.

November 7, 1861

Union gunboats attack Fort Walker and Fort Beauregard at the Battle of Port Royal. Hilton Head Island falls to Union forces.

November 8, 1861

Hilton Head Island becomes the headquarters for the US Army's Department of the South and the chief operational port for the Navy's South Atlantic Blockading Squadron.

December 8, 1861

Four hundred contrabands are living at the Union encampment.

May 9, 1862

General David Hunter, commander of the Department of the South, issues General Orders No. 11 declaring all slaves held in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida free. President Lincoln rescinds his order on May 19.

June 1862

Contraband camps under the jurisdiction of the Quartermaster's Department are established at Beaufort, Hilton Head Island, Bay Point, and Otter Island.

September 17, 1862

General Ormsby Mitchel assumes command; he orders construction of a Freedmen's village at Fish Haul Plantation.

October 12, 1862

General Ormsby Mitchel speaks to former slaves at First African Baptist Church on Hilton Head Island.

January 1, 1863

The Emancipation Proclamation goes into effect. Celebrations are held in Beaufort.

February, 1863

General Rufus Saxton recruits Freedmen for the 1st SCVI; Colonel Thomas Higginson arrives to serve as commander.

May 22, 1863

Colonel James Montgomery musters men from Hilton Head and Beaufort into the 2nd SCVI (later the 34th USCT).

June 2, 1863

James Montgomery, Harriet Tubman, and the 2nd SCVI raid plantations along the Combahee River and free 800 slaves in a single night.

June, 1863

Harriet Tubman takes 100 freed slaves to the recruiting office on Hilton Head Island where they enlist in the 3rd SCVI.

August 19, 1864

The 32nd USCT is ordered to Hilton Head Island to construct Fort Howell to protect Mitchelville and the Union Encampment.

1864

Union Army photographer Samuel Cooley visits Mitchelville.

1865

A map showing Mitchelville is created.

January 31, 1865

The 13th Amendment to the Constitution is passed by Congress and ratified by the states on December 6, 1865.

April 9, 1865

The Civil War ends.

January 14, 1868

The Federal Army leaves Hilton Head Island.

March, 1875

Drayton heirs purchase Fish Haul Plantation.

December, 1885

Gabriel Gardner purchases a portion of former Fish Haul Plantation. In 1886 he sells the land to 10 investors who divide the property into lots for themselves.

1917

New York investor W. P. Clyde owns 9,000 acres of island land. African Americans owned only one quarter of the land.

1986

Archaeologists identify the site of Mitchelville. Mitchelville is listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.

2013

Archaeologists identify former houses, wells, and garbage pits associated with Mitchelville at site 38BU2301.

A freedman's home at Mitchelville, 1864.

On November 7, 1861, Confederate forces were defeated at the Battle of Port Royal, one of the first naval battles of the Civil War. Hilton Head Island, and later Beaufort and St. Helena Island fell to Union forces. Planters abandoned the Sea Islands and thousands of enslaved people escaped from bondage.

Hilton Head Island became the headquarters for the US Army's Department of the South and the chief operational port for the Navy's South Atlantic Blockading Squadron. One day after the Union Army and Navy captured the island, 80 escaped slaves arrived at the encampment. By February 1862, there were over 600 former slaves seeking refuge behind Union lines. The army was quickly overwhelmed. In September 1862, Major General Ormsby Mitchel assumed command of the island and proposed to create a town for the escaped slaves. The town was called Mitchelville.

Mitchelville was the first self-governed Freedmen's community in the United States. Residents worked for the army during the war and the subsequent occupation. When the army left Hilton Head Island in 1868, most jobs went with it. Mitchelville soon declined and by 1880 ceased to be a town. By the mid-1950s only Hilton Head Island's older residents remembered Mitchelville.

Links:

www.gullahgeecheecorridor.org
www.mitchelvillepreservationproject.com
www.coastaldiscovery.org
www.heritagelib.org
www.penncenter.com
www.ancestry.com