Marker honors Fort Mitchel, Union site on Hilton Head

Just a month after President Abraham Lincoln delivered the Emancipation Proclamation in January 1863, Union soldiers on Hilton Head Island were still toiling away on a new fort overlooking Skull Creek.

It was named for Maj. Gen. Ormsby Mitchell, who had died of yellow fever the past October after helping form Hilton Head's Mitchelville, one of the first freedmen's villages in the country.

And though the Civil War would go on for two more years, the fort -- which received a state historical marker Sunday -- never saw battle.

Instead, in the year Fort Mitchel stood active on the bluff, Union soldiers busied themselves between scanning the waterways by basking in the sun, sailing, gathering oysters by the boatful and dancing to the tune of a fiddle at night, according to one soldier's account in letters displayed at the marker's unveiling Sunday.

It's not so unlike the Hilton Head of today, well known for the peace and calm that come from not having much else to do but revel in nature.

Still, Mayor David Bennett said Sunday, Fort Mitchel remains an important piece of heritage on the island, which now caters to twice as many heritage tourists as those visiting for golf and tennis.

Marking the site gives new life to the large, tree-lined mound overlooking Skull Creek, local historians said. The sunken, earthen structure that once stored supplies and sheltered soldiers is the only remaining sign that the ground around Hilton Head Plantation's Old Fort Pub restaurant was once prime real estate in the fight against encroaching Confederate forces.

"We want to be able to tell the complete story of Beaufort County, South Carolina," Bennett told the crowd of about 30 people at the unveiling of Fort Mitchel's marker.

Bennett said the county is embarking on an effort to catalog and improve local historical landmarks through a collaboration between the towns of Hilton Head Island, Bluffton and Port Royal and the city of Beaufort and other local leaders: Beaufort County councilmen Paul Sommerville and Stu Rodman, Carleton Dallas of the World Affairs Council of Hilton Head and Emory Campbell of Penn Center.

An advisory council to the group meets next month to begin rating and assessing the county's sites for future enhancements.

On Sunday, though, the spotlight was on Fort Mitchel, one of two properties owned by the Heritage Library Foundation of Hilton Head Island.

Built beginning in 1862 to protect the U.S. Navy's coaling station at Seabrook Landing, the fort was first named for its designer, Capt. Quincy Gillmore. It was soon renamed in Mitchell's honor when the general died only a month after landing on Hilton Head in 1862.

The fort was fortuitously located so its two cannons could fire shells across the creek toward Pinckney Island as well as toward Port Royal Sound. Union forces had also driven about 900 pilings into the channel to Pinckney Island to slow down any approaching Confederate ships.

While this military strategy was never tested, building the fort was no simple task. One soldier wrote home that he suspected the job was a test of loyalty by Union Gen. David Hunter -- famous for his unauthorized order freeing slaves in South Carolina, Georgia and Florida in 1862.

"He wants to see if we are as bad as we have been represented to be," Charley Kline wrote in a letter displayed Sunday in the Old Fort Pub Gallery. "So far, the men have cheerfully obeyed every order that has been issued and I guess there is not another regiment on the island doing more than we are."

Linda Piekut, executive director of the Heritage Library, says the fort has long deserved the recognition it received Sunday. She's hopeful the marker will bring more visitors to discover its history for themselves.

If you go:

Fort Mitchel is open to the public, located inside Hilton Head Plantation next to Old Fort Pub on Skull Creek Drive. Paid tours by the Heritage Library Foundation of Hilton Head run on Thursdays from March through November.

Follow reporter Rebecca Lurye at twitter.com/IPBG_Rebecca.

Related content:

• "So much history here" -- St. Helena Island's Fort Fremont finds renewed sense of history, January 23, 2016

This story was originally published January 24, 2016 at 6:53 PM with the headline "Marker honors Fort Mitchel, Union site on Hilton Head."