rss
mobile
Feeds
Fort Mitchel was once a battery on the northwest end of the island. Hilton Head fell to Union forces in November 1861 in the largest amphibious assault by American forces ever recorded until World War II, according to the "Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion."
What remains of Fort Mitchel, inside present-day Hilton Head Plantation, is a series of 15-foot-tall earthwork structures undergirded by palmetto logs, which formed the base for cannons pointed across Skull Creek, toward what is now Pinckney Island National Wildlife Refuge.
Union soldiers enlisted 1,000 or so freed slaves left behind by retreating planters to help build the earthworks. The structures and one of the fort's cannons were discovered in 1973 during preparations to build the Old Fort Pub restaurant next door, according to markers at the site.
"There was once a huge military complex here," said Bob Smith, the president of the island's Heritage Library Foundation, which serves as a steward of the land.
The fort, like the landmark Fort Howell near Beach City Road, is one of the few remaining examples in the U.S. of Confederate military structures, Smith said.
He estimates the site receives, on average, 50,000 visitors a year, most drawn from the Old Fort Pub. That figure is based on the number of gate passes issued at the Hilton Head Plantation gate for people going to the restaurant and to the site.
He estimates the war's 150th anniversary next year will draw increased tourism from history buffs following the trail of battles that wove its way through the Sea Islands and Beaufort County.
The Heritage Library Foundation asked the town of Hilton Head's Accommodations Tax Committee for a grant of $55,000, which would have included $20,000 to improve the fort's walkways and signs in preparation for the sesquicentennial.
The foundation, however, received $15,000 Tuesday from the Town Council, according to council member Ken Heitzke. The amount was cut because of tight finances, he said.
Heitzke didn't know whether the foundation would receive more funding later.
"It's a worthwhile effort for the community to bring people here to do something other than hit the beach," Heitzke said.
Smith said the foundation would need the town grant for its other projects, which include managing the Heritage Library and the Mount Zion Chapel of Ease historic cemetery. He did not know whether the Foundation would be able to find other sources of funding.
Hilton Head became the headquarters of President Abraham Lincoln's Department of the South in 1861 soon after it was taken, according to historian Robert Carse's "Department of the South: Hilton Head Island in the Civil War." It was one of the Union's first targets because of its strategic closeness to Port Royal Sound and the vital Savannah railroad. But Gen. Thomas W. Sherman -- not to be confused with Gen. William T. Sherman -- rarely took advantage of the opportunity to attack the close Confederate troops, Carse wrote.
The living on Hilton Head, called Port Royal by Union soldiers from 1862 to 1872, was easy. The site saw no action, according to historical accounts, and soldiers grew fat from the rations sold to them by former slaves. Sherman had the opportunity to attack Confederates on the mainland, but chose to pursue other goals, Smith said. Initially, he cared mostly about bread.
"He built a bakery for the troops," said Smith, adding that many historical accounts describe "how good the bread smelled."
Soldiers from New Hampshire and Rhode Island, as well as former slaves, made up the garrison defending the fort, spending their free time fishing, gathering oysters and fighting among themselves, according to Smith. Historical markers at the site note that drunkenness was so prevalent the Department of the South issued an order in 1863 limiting alcohol intake to commissioned officers -- and then to just one gallon per month per officer.
Though the fort was built under the command of Gen. Quincy A. Gillmore, it was named for Gen. Ormsby Mitchel, who oversaw the Department of the South on the island until he died of yellow fever in 1862. Mitchel also loaned his name to Mitchelville, the nation's first planned community for freed slaves, which stood at the island's heel.
The war's sesquicentennial is expected to draw national and international attention to South Carolina, where the first shots of the war were fired and the Ordinance of Secession was signed, according to the state Department of Archives and History.
The state formed a Sesquicentennial Advisory Board in 2007 to help plan local and statewide observances of historical events.
