The 1st South Carolina Volunteers

Dress parade of 1st South Carolina Volunteers in Beaufort, SC.

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By the end of the American Civil War, approximately 180,000 Black men had enlisted in the United States Army to defeat the rebellion and end slavery. Their story began here, as the origins of more than 160 years of continuous Black military service took root on the humid and moss-draped shores of South Carolina.

Before the 1st

Black people have served in the armed forces of the United States since the nation’s beginning. During the Revolution some colonies recruited all-Black regiments, most notably the 1^st Rhode Island Regiment. After helping win the nation’s liberty, this unit – along with most of the rest of the army – was disbanded. Eleven years after the victory at Yorktown, Congress passed the Militia Act of 1792, which specifically authorized that only white men were eligible for military service. A few states, like Louisiana, quietly enlisted Black men into their local militias, and both free and enslaved Black men served in the War of 1812. Navy was permitted to recruit a limited number of Black men as laborers. But the service of these Black soldiers in the nation’s early history was largely ignored and forgotten, even by Congress which denied their pensions. And their service was never permanent or even long term.

The First Steps of the 1st South Carolina

In early May of 1862, United States Army General David Hunter issued a proclamation emancipating enslaved people in the area under his command on the coast of Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina. Almost immediately, the soldiers under his command began recruiting Black men from St. Helena Island, South Carolina to join what was becoming known as “Hunter’s Regiment,” on Hilton Head Island. Many of these early “recruits” were conscripted for military service under the Confiscation Acts, and not all were excited to serve, at least not at first. If they joined the army, who would provide for their families? Did they really trust these white northerners? After all, just six months earlier these men had been enslaved on the cotton plantations and their enslavers had planted horror stories that the “Yankees” would sell them to Cuba. Much their reluctance to serve stemmed from a mistrust of the Army and its motives – but that would not last.

Not all of these soldiers were forced against their will. Sergeant Charles Trowbridge, a white New Yorker, was one of the soldiers tasked with recruiting formerly enslaved people on the Sea Islands. And he specifically looked for people who wanted to join the army and fight those who had oppressed them. One of the early recruits was a man named William Bronson, whom Trowbridge would later claim was the first Black soldier of the war, and Prince Rivers, who later became a prominent Reconstruction era politician. All total, Trowbridge recruited between 50-100 men, and he trained and armed them, and soon were engaged in what amounted to guerilla warfare and efforts to liberate people. In August of 1862 the company went to St. Simons Island to liberate the communities there, but found that the Black residents had already self-emancipated themselves and driven the planters off. On St. Simons, more people joined the regiment, most notably Susie King Taylor, who served as a nurse and teacher for the unit for the rest of the war.

While Trowbridge’s Company was on St. Simons, the situation on Hilton Head was going poorly. High rates of resentment and desertion made recruiting and organizing a regiment formerly enslaved people a challenge for Hunter. Nearby was the thriving community of Mitchelville, which was a much more appealing place to be than an army camp. His problems were short lived. Within a few weeks, the Lincoln administration rescinded Hunter’s emancipation proclamation and the regiment was disbanded. Almost all the men went back home to their families on the surrounding islands, except for Trowbridge’s company on St. Simons.

The 1st South Carolina Volunteers is Born

In July, Congress passed the 2^nd Confiscation Act that permitted the "employment” of Black people to suppress the rebellion. The next month, Abraham Lincoln quietly granted permission to the Secretary of War to begin recruiting a limited number of Black soldiers. This was to be an experiment at Black military recruitment in anticipation for an Emancipation Proclamation, which Lincoln had suggested to his Cabinet in July. Trowbridge’s company returned to the Beaufort area and set up a camp on Port Royal Island near the ruins of Fort Frederick. The Army designated this encampment as Camp Saxton, named for General Rufus Saxton, who was in overall command of the region.

The Army expanded its recruiting activities at Camp Saxton – this time under official guidance. After the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation was issued in September, many men and their families in the region saw service as an opportunity to earn wages, prove themselves as men, and to strike a blow at the power that had oppressed them for 250 years. By November, the regiment had swelled into the hundreds. Most of the recruits came from the nearby Sea Islands. A large contingent, including Robert Sutton, emancipated themselves near Jacksonville, Florida. Robert Boling had been an enslaved body servant forced to serve his owner in the Confederate Army near City Point, Virginia, where he escaped and made his way to Camp Saxton. In early November, Trowbridge, now a Captain, began leading raids up and down the coast to liberate more people in the name of freedom – and recruiting. On November 24, 1862, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, a prominent Massachusetts abolitionist, arrived to take command as Colonel of the 1^st South Carolina Volunteers.

The 1st South listening to the reading of the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863.

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The Year of Jubilee Has Come

January 1, 1863 was a momentous day at Camp Saxton. The military command of the Department of South – which mostly included the Sea Islands near Beaufort – began to plan for a major celebration and public reading of the Emancipation Proclamation. They settled on Camp Saxton as the site and the men of the 1^st South Carolina to be the centerpiece of the celebration.

All total around 5,000-7,000 people poured into the live oaks around the Old Fort Plantation where Camp Saxton was located. A platform was constructed underneath a large oak tree. Higginson and other prominent educators and leaders in the Port Royal Experiment took center stage, with the men formed up in tight ranks. Charlotte Forten, one of the teachers at Penn School noted how remarkable the men looked in their blue coats and bright red trousers. Surrounding them were their families, beaming with pride. Higginson presented flags to the regiment’s color bearers, Prince Rivers and Robert Sutton. Sutton addressed the crowd and said the men would show the flag to Jeff Davis. Emblazoned on the flags was the phrase “The Year of Jubilee Has Come.”

Reverend William Brisbane, a former slaveowner turned abolitionist read the Emancipation Proclamation. As he finished, a young boy in the crowd named Prince Polite remembered that his grandfather, originally born free in Africa, stood up and began to sing:

My country tis of thee
Sweet Land of Liberty
Of Thee I sing

The crowd joined in, and then celebrated with a barbecue. For generations afterward, January 1 has been celebrated in the region as Emancipation Day.

Beyond Emancipation Day

Two weeks after Emancipation Day at Camp Saxton, Higginson had the men parade down Bay Street in downtown Beaufort, demonstrating to the rest of the military leadership that the 1^st South Carolina was ready. In February they traded in their red pants for the standard issue sky blue, and boarded transports for Florida. The regiment went into action near Jacksonville, where Robert Sutton had the opportunity liberate his family and others from the plantation he had once been enslaved on. Back in Beaufort, Prince Rivers began to organize the soldiers to use their wages – which were less than white soldiers - to purchase property at tax auctions throughout Beaufort County. In February of 1864, the 1^st South Carolina Volunteers was re-named the 33^rd United States Colored Troops (USCT). The unit spent the rest of the war operating up and down the coast from Jacksonville to Charleston.

As the Civil War ended, the 1^st South Carolina Volunteers participated in the military occupation of communities like Augusta, GA and Charleston, SC, working to protect the life, liberty, and property of formerly enslaved people. On February 6, 1866, the 33^rd USCT gathered at the ruins of Fort Wagner near Charleston to be mustered out by Charles Trowbridge, now the Lt. Colonel who had been with the unit more than four years. He told the soldiers, “The hour is at hand when we must separate forever, and nothing can ever take from us the pride we feel when we look back upon the history of the 1st South Carolina Volunteers—the first black regiment that ever bore arms in defense of freedom on the Continent of America.”