Mitchelville

[18thVirginia]

Under the direction of General Ormsby M. Mitchel, a portion of Fish Haul/Fish Hall Plantation became Mitchelville, the first self-governed community of freedmen in the United States. When planters abandoned the Sea Islands after the Battle of Point Royal on November 7, 1861, thousands of enslaved people escaped from bondage. Just a day after the Union Army set up an encampment, there were 80 refugees at the camp, with over 600 seeking refuge behind Union lines by February 1862.

General Mitchel was determined that this would be a model for a refugee camp and provided lumber and nails for the former slaves to build their own homes on a portion of the former plantation on Hilton Head. The Army operated a commissary at Mitchelville and independent tradesmen could also apply for a permit to operate a store there.

http://www.bcgov.net/mitchelville/documentation/more-than-a-refugee-camp/

 

[18thVirginia]

"Good colored people, you have a great work to do, and you are in a position of responsibility. This experiment is to give you freedom, position, homes, your families, property, your own soil. It seems to me a better time is coming … a better day is dawning." General Ormsby M. Mitchell

http://www.mitchelvillepreservationproject.com/history/

 

[18thVirginia]

The First African Baptist Church, Hilton Head

We omitted in our last issue to chronicle the organization of the First Baptist Church of Hilton Head, and the ordination of its pastor. These events occurred on Sunday, [August] the 17th instant, and the ceremonies attending them were conducted in a very impressive manner. The society thus established numbers about 120 members, all of whom are contrabands. Of these nearly 70 were professing Christians under the rule of their late masters, while the others have been converted and baptized since our advent among them. Abraham Murchison, a colored man in the employ of the Chief Quarter-master, has been selected as the minister to these people, and was duly installed as their pastor on the Sabbath before last. The following was the order of exercises : Ordination Sermon—Chaplain H. S. Wayland, 7th Conneticut Volunteers; charge to candidate—Chaplain W. C. Patterson, 1st Massachusetts cavalry ; ordination prayer and right-hand of fellowship—Chaplain H. Hovey, Volunteer Engineers ; charge to the church—Chaplain Whitehead, 97th Pennsylvania Volunteers.http://civilwarbaptists.com/thisdayinhistory/1862-august-17/

 

[18thVirginia]

Fish Haul Plantation, Hilton Head.
"Slaves of Rebel General Thomas F. Drayton" Henry P. Moore, 1862

 

[18thVirginia]

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Mitchelville, about 1865

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Mitchelville

 

[18thVirginia]

Homes in Mitchelville


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This gives an idea of the town landscape.



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[18thVirginia]

The Army Corps of Engineers laid out streets and lots.

 

[18thVirginia]

This house may have had several families

Houses were elevated with steps up to the door.

Some houses had chimneys.

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[18thVirginia]

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[18thVirginia]

Nursery at Hilton Head, Henry P. Moore photographer

Many of the newly freed people found employment with the Union army. Women tended small gardens and sold eggs, vegetables and other food to the soldiers at the nearby camp.

 

[chellers]

Great thread, 18th. Thank you.

 

[18thVirginia]

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1861 Engraving

At 87, Sam Mitchell remembered the events associated with the fall of Hilton Head:

Maussa had nine children, six boy been in Rebel army. Dat Wednesday in November w'en gun fust shoot to Bay Pin [Point] I t'ought it been t'under rolling, but day ain't no cloud. My mother say, "son, dat ain't no t'under, dat Yankee come to gib you Freedom." I been so glad, I jump up and down and run. My father been splitting rail and Maussa come from Beaufort in de carriage and tear by him yelling for de driver. He told de driver to git his eight-oar boat name Tarrify and carry him to Charleston. My father he run to his house and tell my mother what Maussa say. My mother say, "You ain't gonna row no boat to Charleston, you go out dat back door and keep agoing." So my father he did so.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/36022/36022-h/36022-h.html#sam-mitchell

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

Yes, thanks SO much for this thread, 18th! I understand it was pretty rare, a place where something was instituted which made sense on the part of what on earth to do for all these newly relocated people. Makes me think of a natural disaster only worse, you know? They'd lost what little they had and any small claim to even being able to set down roots like the rest of the world. Some had skills, many none but only because they'd been forced to use all their waking hours doing some single, repetitive task.

It's a given, would have been such a boon, had this been instituted across the board instead of the majority having to find what they could while making new lives, heck, lives. A lot not surviving. Hope it's ok, checking in with this place which made such a difference for some fine men, women and children, able to do something with all that hope and faith.

 

[18thVirginia]

"This week, 48 escaped from a single plantation near Grahamville...After four days of trial and peril, hidden by day and threading the waters with their boats by night, evading the rebel pickets, joyfully entered camp at Hilton HeadT."

Report of E.L. Pierce, Government Agent, February 3, 1862

"These people were first called contrabands at Fortress Monroe; but at Port Royal, where they were next introduced to us in any considerable number, they were generally referred to as freedmen. These terms are milestones in our progress: and they are yet to be lost in the better and more comprehensive designation of citizens, or, when discrimination is convenient, citizens of African descent."
Edward Pierce, The Atlantic Monthly, September, 1863

http://www.bcgov.net/mitchelville/downloads/Lesson One/Lesson One Introduction and Activities.pdf

 

[18thVirginia]

A group of contrabands on the deck of the U.S.S. Vermont, 1861

This photo was shown as part of a collection about Mitchelville--it's by Henry P. Moore, who traveled to South Carolina in 1861 to photograph the Third New Hampshire Regiment in South Carolina.

 

[donna]

Very informative thread.

 

[18thVirginia]

GENERAL ORDER #11, issued by General David Hunter on May 11, 1862, emancipating all the slaves under his command in coastal Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina.

The three States of Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina, comprising the Military Department of the South, having deliberately declared themselves no longer under the protection of the United States of America, and having taken up arms against the said United States, it becomes a military necessity to declare them under martial law. This was accordingly done on the 25th day of April, 1862. Slavery and martial law in a free country are altogether incompatible. The persons in these three States—Georgia, South Carolina, and Florida—heretofore held as slaves, are therefore declared forever free.

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Gen. David Hunter

 

[18thVirginia]

Laundry Day at Mitchelville, 1864

The houses are very comfortable and commodious structures; built partly with slabs from the saw mills, and partly with rough timber worked out by the negroes themselves. Thus far the thing promises well, and the negroes enter into it with all their heart. In fact nothing has ever taken such hold of them as this hope—the first they have ever had—of having homes of their own."
Private letter to the editor of the New York Evening Post

Each home had its own chimney or coal burning stove.

 

[18thVirginia]

Office of the Superintendent of Contrabands

 

[18thVirginia]

Mess House for laborers