Union soldiers marching down horse racing track in Beaufort, S.C.

chubachus

First Sergeant
Joined
Nov 27, 2014
Location
Virginia
union%2Bsoldiers%2Bhorse%2Bracing%2Btrack%2Bbeaufort%2Bsouth%2Bcarolina.jpg


By Samuel A. Cooley.

Source.
 

Attachments

  • union%2Bsoldiers%2Bhorse%2Bracing%2Btrack%2Bbeaufort%2Bsouth%2Bcarolina.jpg
    union%2Bsoldiers%2Bhorse%2Bracing%2Btrack%2Bbeaufort%2Bsouth%2Bcarolina.jpg
    197.5 KB · Views: 31
SO many questions! Race track used as a parade ground? It's a great photograph and really unexpected! There are an awful lot of photographs in and around Beaufort, thought I'd seen most of them, as well as journals, diaries, reports, gosh, letters and activity- had no caught a whiff of the race track.

Thanks Chubachus! Love Beaufort, SC photos!
 
Had this vague hope on which regiment, since the 50th PA was in Beaufort, then had to scratch that. A photographer managed to take photos of them and their officers- this predilection for all grays put paid to that, mounts were bays, chestnuts, grays- mixed. Still, with a little research might be possible to discover who these men might be just based on that.

Charleston? Must look that up, may be something there. OH, anyone remember a photo of a clubhouse at one of these racetracks, used for an officer's prison? Was that Charleston?
 
Do we have a date for this event? I'm very curious about why the parade / march is being held.
 
There was a mass grave of Union soldiers near or on the race track grounds. After Charleston had been captured, the local black population reinterred the dead in a more formal and respectful way. There was a parade, including black school children, USCTs and other troops, speeches and demonstration drills, all on the racetrack grounds. I believe the tradition continued for a while after 1865. Like Patrick H, I wonder when this photgraph was taken.
 
You'd be surprised at how many racetracks, north and south, were used during the Civil War, and not for racing. Maybe they provided the nearest substantial open space with good access near big cities. A few years ago I was attempting to find the training grounds for Civil War infantry regiments in Connecticut and many turned out to be on racetracks. The tracks are gone (the one in Hartford is a factory and the one in New Haven is late Victorian housing). You find a few pictures, but none nearly as good as the Beaufort one.
 
Back
Top