United States. Army. Dept. of the South. Records, 1862-1866.
Title:
Records, 1862-1866.
Chiefly printed general and special orders deal primarily with the organization and administration of the military command of Brig. Gen. Rufus Saxton of the sea islands of South Carolina; orders generally deal with management of both the soldiers and the large population of African American freedmen; General Order No. 26, 15 Mar. 1862, re formation of Department of the South in areas under command of Brig. Gen. W.T. Sherman, "South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida... "will constitute a military department"; orders conscripting freedmen, issued, 1 and 11 May 1862 (Beaufort, S.C.), requiring that the Provost Marshall and "the several Overseers of plantations of Ladies, St. Helena, and Coosaw Islands" to send to Beaufort "every able-bodied negro... capable of bearing arms." On 18 Oct. 1862, General Orders No. 10 decreed "the 1st Regiment of South Carolina Volunteers will be organized as soon as possible." Encouraging enlistments, the order states that by an act of Congress "all slaves of rebel masters who enter into the service of the United States, are forever free." Recruits were to report to the regimental headquarters at Smith's plantation. However, General Orders No. 17, dated 8 March 1863, revealed a lack of volunteers and invoked a draft of "every able-bodied freedman in this department, between the ages of eighteen and fifty years." Circulars, 20 Oct. 1862 and 12 Nov. 1864, Beaufort and Hilton Head, S.C., re deaths of Rev. F.E. Barnard, "Superintendent of Plantations and Teacher" and Samuel Dunn Phillips, including a resolution of his Harvard classmates, tributes, and an elegy by "E.M." and instructions for conducting a census ordered by G.O. 154; General Orders No. 7, 22 Aug. 1862, addresses "the hope of correcting a deplorable evil," bigomy among the freedmen. "Any negro claiming to have, or charged with having more than one wife, is required to confine himself to, and, if need be, support that one to whom he has been lawfully married. If no such marriage has ever been celebrated, he will select that one of his so-called wives who is the mother of his children, if any he have; and, after a marriage service duly performed by some Minister of the Gospel, take her to himself as his own sole lawful wife." Thereafter, all infractions "will be liable to arrest and imprisonment." Confidential circular letter, 25 Feb. 1863, instructing regiments and batteries scheduled for embarkation; General Orders No. 17, 6 Mar. 1863, for drafting all black males in the area under Departmental control between the ages of eighteen and fifty. General Orders No. 24, 19 Mar. 1863, exempting from military service any African American men employed by the Engineer Department, cautioning employers including "All plantation superintendents, tradesmen, sutlers, and others... against harboring, secreting, or keeping in their employ able-bodied male negroes liable to the draft" and implementing an appeals system for freemen who suspected they had been defrauded of their wages; General Orders No. 53 (29 June 1863), Hilton Head and Port Royal, S.C., re true meaning of desertion. General Order No. 93, 26 Oct. 1863, Folly Island, S.C., re charges, findings, and sentence of a military commission to try merchant seamen Bradford Boiland for larceny and aiding and corresponding with the enemy, for which he was found guilty of several of the charges and sentenced to one year of hard labor. Proceedings, 21 Dec. 1863, Morris Island, S.C., re court-martial of Maj. B. Ryder Corwin of the Second S.C. Volunteers on charges brought by Col. James Montgomery including testimony of [Thomas Wentworth] Higginson and information re the attack on Fort Wagner and encounter of Gen. [Montgomery Cunningham] Meigs' transports with the Confederate enemy forces at Palatka, Florida, with letter, 28 Apr. 1864, Quincy Adams Gillmore, transmitting the proceedings to Lorenzo Thomas, Adjutant General of the U.S. Army. General Order No. 31 (29 Feb. 1864, Hilton Head, S.C.), re the charge, specification, and sentence of Second Lieutenants Charles Whittaker and James Sweeny; announcement, 29 Apr. 1865, Hilton Head, S.C., re the death of Pres. Abraham Lincoln with directions from Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War, for "appropriate funeral honors" to be observed on every post. By 16 Aug. 1864 "great numbers of unemployed colored men and deserters hiding about to avoid labor or service" would cause General Orders No. 119 to be published. It outlined punishment for shirkers and provided provisions for plantation superintendents placing such persons under arrest. and General Orders, 8 June 1865 (Hilton Head, S.C.), reporting findings of a Court of Inquiry re charges of "employment of soldiers as servants, who were not noted on the muster rolls as such." Other topics include the procedures for cotton harvests and proclamations of thanksgiving. This collection also includes sundry General Orders of the Headquarters, Bureau for Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands for South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida.
ArchivalResource:
225 items.
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