Day 334-335; 4/22 – 4/23: The rain overnight on Sunday, 4/21 provided some good sleeping weather in Beaufort…. Or maybe it was the fact that Tracy was up at 3:00 am the night before to catch her flight or maybe it was the multiple glasses of Chardonnay we shared after not seeing each other for almost a year? Regardless, we had a leisurely morning and Gary’s yummy omelette for breakfast then we headed downtown to check out downtown Beaufort (pronounced beau like beautiful, not beau like Bo).
On Monday, 4/22 we wandered through a few shops, but didn’t find anything we couldn’t live without. After a while, all the shops (except for the art galleries) look the same. We had hoped to have lunch or dinner at the highly recommended Old Bull Tavern, but it was closed. We opted instead for Panini’s on the Waterfront located in a former Bank building with its outdoor dining overlooking the waterfront park on the ICW. It was a late lunch followed by a 1 hour bus tour of Beaufort which proved to be the highlight for the day, providing such great history as well as the key sites in Beaufort.
Beaufort was founded in 1711 making it the second oldest city in South Carolina (SC) behind Charleston. On Port Royal island in the heart of the Sea Islands and SC Lowcountry, it once embodied the serene elegance of the antebellum South. BTW – I wasn’t sure what antebellum meant until I looked it up; in case you were wondering, it means “before the Civil War.” Period mansions still line picturesque streets, palmetto palm trees grow everywhere (SC’s state symbol) and the arts scene is quite lively.
Before the Civil War, shipbuilding, rice and then cotton brought prosperity on the back of the slave based economy. When the Civil War loomed, Beaufort was in the forefront of the Southern efforts to break away from the Union. Secession House, where the Ordinance of Secession was drawn up, still stands on Craven Street. When the Union marched into town and took over, they turned it into a hospital.
Beaufort didn’t see much war related destruction. In 1861, a Union armada was sent to capture the town (which fell easily) and remained in the hands of the North throughout the war. As the war wound down, Beaufort became a center of the emancipation efforts. Due in part to its early occupation, the city attracted escaping slaves. The Union declared the slaves emancipated and initiated efforts at education and preparation for full independence.
Interesting story of a local hero: Robert Smalls was born into slavery in Beaufort, South Carolina in 1839. His mother, Lydia Polite, was a slave owned by Henry McKee, who may have been Smalls’ father. Smalls was hired out by McKee on the Charleston waterfront as a young man. Owners often did that – hired out their slaves to work and collected the wages themselves. Working as a sail maker, rigger, and foreman, Smalls gained expertise in the Georgia and South Carolina waterways. During the Civil War, the Confederate Army conscripted Smalls into service aboard the CSS Planter.
On the night of May 13, 1862, Smalls and seven enslaved men who worked on board the Planter navigated the ship out of the heavily fortified Charleston harbor. After a stop at a nearby wharf to pick up their families, Smalls disguised himself as a white captain and maneuvered the ship past several Confederate forts to the Union fleet, at which point he hoisted a white sheet atop the Planter, signifying its surrender. Union officials boarded the ship, and Smalls turned the Planter over to the Union Navy.
Smalls was hailed across the nation for his daring escape and Congress passed a bill, signed by President Lincoln, that awarded Smalls and his fellow crewmen a monetary reward for the capture and turn over of the Planter. Smalls traveled to Washington to meet with President Lincoln, where he helped to persuade Lincoln to permit black men to serve in the Union army. Soon after the meeting, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton accepted 5,000 former slaves to fight for the Union.
After the war, Smalls returned to his native Beaufort. He bought his former master’s home, seized earlier by Union tax authorities. Smalls went on to lead a life of public service, notably as the first black captain of a U.S. vessel and as a Congressman representing South Carolina’s 5th and 7th congressional districts in the U.S. House of Representatives. It was at his suggestion to President Lincoln that black soldiers were allowed to be buried in the national cemetery in Beaufort.
About a dozen national cemeteries were established in 1862, more than a year after the war began. The National Cemetery in Beaufort was created by Abraham Lincoln’s National Cemetery Act in 1863. The original interments in the cemetery were men who died in nearby Union hospitals during the occupation of the area early in the Civil War, mainly in 1861 following the Battle of Port Royal. Battlefield casualties from around the area were also reinterred in the cemetery. Of the Civil War soldiers buried in Beaufort, there are 9,000 Union soldiers (3,607 unknown,) 2,800 POWs from the camp at Millen and 1,700 African-American Union soldiers. There are also 102 confederate soldiers. Because identification of remains was difficult at best, some Confederate soldiers were reburied in national cemeteries, unintentionally as Union soldiers.
When first established, the national cemeteries were only for union soldiers while confederates were often buried in unmarked mass graves. Arranging Confederate burials became a state, local, or individual responsibility. As a result, many Confederates were buried in private family or city cemeteries. By 1870, almost 300,000 Union soldiers and sailors lay buried in 73 national cemeteries. Today, the nation has more than 175 national cemeteries, soldiers’ lots, government lots, and Confederate cemeteries.
Dinner took us over the Beaufort River on the Woods Memorial bridge that was used in the scene where Forrest Gump was running across the USA and crosses into Mississippi. It wasn’t really Mississippi… it was SC. Yup – they changed the sign and confused the tourists for weeks! We sat outside on the porch at Lady’s Island Dockside, even though it was a little cool.
Over 15 major Hollywood movies were filmed in and around Beaufort: The Great Santini, The Big Chill, The Prince of Tides, Daughter of the Dust, The War, Jungle Book and of course Forrest Gump. For more on this, visit explorebeaufortsc.com
Tuesday, 4/23 was not our favorite day. Up early to get to Charleston, we threw off lines around 7:00 am. The tidal swing in SC is substantial (7-9’) making the currents very strong. As we left the dock in the narrow fairway, we experienced a mechanical issue with the port transmission preventing us from using forward; we only had neutral and reverse. We fought the current with the one engine and both bow and stern thrusters but it wasn’t without some minor bumps and damage to a few other boats. Talk about raising your heart rate and blood pressure. Most damage was cosmetic and we returned to port to leave our contact informatin before heading to Charleston in a rather somber mood.
It was about a 7 hour run to Charleston and a few dolphins joined us along the way. That was a particular thrill for Tracy having heard us talk about it, but now able to experience it. We are still seeking the answer to the question: what is it about a Fleming that attracts the dolphins more than other boats? When we ran with 4 other boats, we’d have 7-10 dolphins on either side or in the bow and the other boats would have none or maybe 1 or 2. They even asked us to stop hogging the dolphins and called us the dolphin magnet!
It was a long travel day that started badly but ended with a wonderful dinner on the boat and a few adult beverages. Gary made an awesome chicken piccata over linguine and of course that pairs well with Chardonnay!
Tuesday, 4/23 would bring a day of touring Charleston, starting off with a horse drawn carriage tour at 9:30 am. We plan to make quite the day of it before Tracy departs on Wednesday morning!
chashurley
We have been on the Charleston main dock twice. The currents rival Hell Gate in NYC! Chuck