This month U.S. Army Gen. Oliver O. Howard calls for a gathering of Edisto Island’s freedmen. Howard is loathe to break the bad news to the assembled crowd, representative of some 40,000 former slaves who now till what they think are their own lands, given to them by Union General William T. Sherman earlier this…
Today the New England Freedmen’s Aid Society convenes in Boston for its annual meeting. Founded on February 4, 1862, the northern, Christian-based Society provides teachers to educate freedmen. Initially based out of Port Royal, South Carolina, the Society in the ensuing years established schools in other Union-controlled areas such as the District of Columbia; Beaufort,…
While quietness masks Union maneuvering among the islands near Charleston this day, an unwelcome surprise awaits Union forces marching into Aiken. The opposition thus far to Sherman‘s advances in the state has been ineffective. Confederate General Joseph Wheeler, however, hopes to reverse the course of the war that has gone so badly awry for the…