SOUTH CAROLINA: Author Wants Historical Marker for Civil War Prison Camp
WEST COLUMBIA, SC (WIS) – A South Carolina Civil War historian who has written several books about Columbia-area history would like to see an official marker placed to identify the site of a former prison camp in West Columbia.
Author Tom Elmore at Camp Sorghum site.
Tom Elmore, author of Columbia Civil War Landmarks and A Carnival of Destruction showed WIS the five-acre site off Lucas Street in West Columbia where as many as 1,400 Union Army officers were kept in 1864 and 1865.
“It would be nice if someone would put some kind of marker, just a simple historic marker saying, you know ‘Near or on this spot was Camp Sorghum’ and just give a little brief capsule of it to honor the men who suffered and died here.”
From October through December 1864, the prisoners were kept in an open field near the Saluda River. Although it did not have an official name, it was known as Camp Sorghum because sorghum molasses was the main food staple provided to the prisoners.
With little shelter provided, they lived in holes dug into the ground.
As many as one-third of the men escaped.
In December, the prison camp was moved to the Asylum at Bull Street because of its high brick wall. Because they were the waning months of the war, qualified guards and food were scarce.
Although the process of acquiring a marker is fairly simple, it costs $2,260 to have one installed. The applicant would have to come up with funding for the marker.
“It’s a bit of a complicated thing,” Elmore said. “I’ve talked to a couple of groups in the past who would like to do it and they were willing to do it but for some reason or another, it never came about.”
The State Historic Preservation Office of the South Carolina Department of Archives and History administers the state historical marker program. Click here for requirements and details.
Since the program’s inception, more than 1,500 markers have been placed at historic sites throughout South Carolina.
-WISTV
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VIRGINIA: Petersburg Prepares for Civil War Buff Rush
PETERSBURG, Va. — The South Side Depot in historic Old Towne Petersburg will soon be restored and transformed into a visitor’s center designed to handle an influx of Civil War tourists ahead of the 150th anniversary of the Siege of Petersburg.
South Side depot.
The National Park Service, Virginia Department of Transportation, the Department of Historical Resources, the Civil War Trust and Petersburg city officials held a restoration ceremony Monday.
“Today’s ceremony could not have come at a better time than during the planning for the sesquicentennial commemoration of the Civil War,” Petersburg Mayor W Howard Myers said.
“This project is a great example of a public-private partnership to help preserve the history and continue the legacy of this great city.”
The South Side Depot is the oldest depot in Virginia.
Once complete, the National Park Service will staff the visitor’s center.
-WTVR.com
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PENNSYLVANIA: The Only Black Civil War Correspondent
The only black correspondent in the Civil War was Thomas Morris Chester, a reporter for the Philadelphia Press.
Chester had recruited colored troops for both the 54th and 55th United States Colored Troops in Pennsylvania. Both regiments had a plethora of Pennsylvania men on their rosters.
Thomas Morris Chester.
Born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, he was the son of a fugitive slave. Chester studied in Liberia, travelling there four different times. He was a supporter of African colonization and was the editor of the Star of Liberia newspaper. He also served as Superintendent of Schools in Liberia.
As a newspaperman, he traveled along with the Army of the Potomac. During his writings, he made a point of describing how federal officers treated members of the United States Colored Troops and was very critical when they did not treat “a Negro patriot as a man”.
He witnessed and wrote about the Union takeover of Richmond, Virginia and the evacuation of the Confederate Capital on April 2. He wrote that watching slaves in Richmond greeting the federal soldiers was “not only grand, but subline.” In a bold but also subtle move in Richmond, Chester made his way to the recently abandoned speaker’s desk at the Confederate House of Representatives to write his article.
He was confronted by a recently freed Confederate officer to leave. Chester refused. He knew that his move was symbolic, sitting at the head of the government that had dedicated its platform to preserving slavery.
Popular author historian and author James McPherson said Chester’s newspaper dispatches from Richmond and Petersburg fronts were “extremely valuable. They are well written, with important descriptions of life in the trenches and behind the lines.”
Chester’s articles were recently published in the book “Black Civil War Correspondent – His Dispatches from the Virginia Front” by R. J. M. Blackett.
Recently Chester was named as one of the five most influential blacks during the entire 19th Century in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He was described as having “a very strong sense of racial pride which was much lacking in the United States and Harrisburg. He would write convincingly about how – instead of having paintings of George Washington – back families should have paintings of black heroes.”
-examiner.com
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