Renowned Beaufort historian is retiring — but still working on his next Civil War book
Renowned historian Stephen Wise of Beaufort is retiring after four-plus decades of preserving and promoting the military history at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island.
Wise was the first civilian to run the hallowed 51-year-old museum. Every recruit who trains at the depot must walk its marbled floors as part of their heritage indoctrination. It also draws more than 80,000 visitors a year.
Besides his work as museum director, which involved documenting and sharing the history of the Marines and placing it in local context, Wise is best known for authoring several authoritative books detailing the military and maritime history of the Civil War, as well as co-authoring the definitive multi-volume “History of Beaufort County.”
The City of Beaufort recently recognized Wise’s commitment to enhancing the public understanding of the profound significance of 111-year-old Parris Island in American military history, where 20,000 recruits are trained yearly.
Stephen Wise still working on his latest book
Wise is not retiring from writing. In fact, this week Wise was proofing the pages of his latest book, called “Smoke on the Battery,” which is due out in October.
The richly illustrated book examines ironclad ship clashes in Charleston Harbor, brutal fighting on Morris Island at and Fort Wagner, the crucial role of U.S. Colored Troops and the toll on civilians trapped in the city under relentless fire, says the University of South Carolina Press.
As a historian with a special interest in Civil War naval history, Wise said, he could not have found a better place to land than history-rich Beaufort, South Carolina’s second-oldest city.
“It’s overwhelming,” Wise says of the area’s history. “It’s everywhere. It’s fun because you have everything from prehistoric sites to colonial sites, Native American sites, Revolution, Civil War, War of 1812, the bases that were here in World War I, World War II, it’s just everywhere. You have all the military personnel who retired here and who have an interest in the history. When I got here, Beaufort was still very small, but everybody had a real good feeling for history and promoted it.”
History of the historian
The 74-year-old Wise grew up in Ohio.
As a boy, he toured historic sites with his parents. He and his friends got caught up in Civil War history during its 100-year anniversary celebration in the early 1960s. There were games, toy soldiers and television programs, Wise recalled. His parents loved history, especially his mother. All of these factors propelled Wise to study history.
The Parris Island museum, located on the Marine training base, drew 125,000 visitors a year at its peak. The number dropped to 80,000 after COVID-19 and new security protocol. But it still remains one of the most popular military historic sites in the South Carolina, Wise says.
Wise was working at the University of South Carolina in Columbia when he applied for the museum job and was hired in March 1983 by Major Gen. James McMonagle, who served as the commanding general of the 1st Marine Division and Parris Island recruit depot.
“He basically wanted a civilian to run the museum,” Wise said of McMonagle. “They wanted to make it a more permanent museum and have somebody who’s there longer than a two-year service.”
The museum was originally set up by General Robert H. Barrow in 1975. Barrow went on to become the commandant of the Marine Corps under President Ronald Reagan.
Wise held the post for 43 years, all the while leading the military museum as a civil servant.
“Very lucky,” Wise says. “Everything kind of fell together.”
Adding local history
The museum shows the phases of training that recruits go through. Parents wanted to see that, Wise said. It also has displays on marine uniforms and weapons through the years and major battles. Another section shows famous marines who have completed training at Parris Island.
One of Wise’s charges was to incorporate the local history of the Beaufort and Port Royal area into the story of the Marines, from colonial wars to the Civil War. Wise said he considered himself more of a conductor and credited a wonderful staff he said made the museum come alive.
Soon after his arrival in Beaufort, Wise also became an adjunct professor at the University of South Carolina Beaufort.
In graduate school, the joke was you would need to teach in an out-of-the-way university for years and work your way up into a full-time tenured job, which sounded pretty rough, Wise said. But soon after Wise got the job at Parris Island, he was almost immediately hired as an adjunct USCB professor and was soon teaching history courses on area military bases, mainly at Parris Island but also at the Naval Hospital and the Marine Corp Air Station Beaufort.
He last taught at the local university in 2024.
His thoughts on history cutbacks
Earlier this year, the state considered cutting the history major at the university located in the 315-year-old city because of low enrollment. The move brought a groundswell of opposition. The decision is now on hold. Wise called the situation “horrible.” Liberal arts, he said, are getting diluted in higher education and students aren’t required to take as many history, English and social sciences courses as they once did.
“History makes you think, teaches you how to write, and to analyze and research,” he said. “When I was in school a lot of people becoming lawyers or journalists were history majors because it taught you all these things that would be important in your future careers. And now, I just don’t know what’s happening to the universities and why we are getting away from the core curriculum.“
Lots of local history
Beaufort and Port Royal have so much history because of their location off of Port Royal Sound, one of the most strategically important sites in the southeast, Wise said.
“It’s the deepest natural harbor so that attracted the French and the Spanish and the British and eventually the United States to set up their bases around Port Royal Sound,” Wise said.
Wise likes all history, he said. To be a good historian, he said, one needs intellectual curiosity: “Oh, that looks interesting. Let me find out more about it.”
Naval Civil War history is strong point
But he is most comfortable with the Civil War.
“I can walk out my front door and right across the street were Civil War camps,” said Wise, who lives in the Old Commons neighborhood in downtown Beaufort. “I’m just immersed with the history here.”
His book “Gate of Hell: Campaign for Charleston Harbor, 1863,” focuses on the bloody trench warfare, the role of ironclad ships and the performance of African American troops like the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, one of the first official African American units in the United States military during the Civil War. The 1989 film “Glory” is based on the 54th’s exploits.
It’s Wise’s favorite book.
“That’s a topic that has interested me since about the sixth grade. It was my master’s thesis, and then I was able to turn it into a book,” Wise said.
His most groundbreaking work, however, might be his book on blockade running called “Lifeline of the Confederacy: Blockade Running During the Civil War, a highly acclaimed account of the maritime supply trade into Southern harbors. “It talks about a topic that didn’t get very good coverage over the years,” he said.
Over the years, Wise has also shared his expertise on the Arts & Entertainment Channel, the History Channel the Discovery Channel and public television.
What the future holds
The future for the historian involves writing two additional books.
One is a picture book of Beaufort during the Civil War. Another will focus on the Battle of Honey Hill, a major Civil War campaign near Ridgeland in November 1864 tied in with Sherman’s march to the sea.
He also plans to rework volume II of “The History of Beaufort County.” The plan calls for pulling out information on reconstruction and adding new information that has been discovered about that period, when a pioneering local initiative called the Port Royal Experiment had enslaved people transitioning from slavery to freedom.
“All eyes of the nation were on Port Royal in 1862, 63 especially and into 64 to see what was happening and to see if this could be applied elsewhere in the nation,” Wise said.
Another area of interest is a study of a freedmen’s community created during the Civil War on Parris Island, which remained until the 1930s, Wise said. Freedmen were individuals released from slavery.
