“A Pleasure Excursion”

• Main Author: Fields-Black, Edda L.
• Format: Book Part
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford University PressNew York 2024
• Subjects: Hayward; Morris Island; Thurston; Hutchinson Island
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197552797.003.0013; https://academic.oup.com/book/chapter-pdf/58049678/oso-9780197552797-chapter-13.pdf

Abstract This chapter describes local planters or volunteer aides-de-camp that provided material assistance to Confederate Army units and to their commanding generals. It mentions Alexander Robert Chisolm, the owner of Chisolm Plantation on Coosaw Island, who brought men he held in bondage to Charleston to work on building fortifications at Morris Island. It also recounts Isaac Hayward, his mother, Sibby, brothers Adam, Joe, Kit, and Oliver, and sister Mathilda, which were among the 208 enslaved people listed in Sarah Constance Chisolm’s 1855 settlement for her marriage to Major Edward North Thurston. The chapter discusses the Charleston Light Dragoons, which displayed their skills in musters and acted as slave patrols to protect the state’s white residents from insurrections or at least diminish their fears of them. It details the Union Army’s shift in focus to the siege of Charleston that left freedom seekers on Hutchinson Island and other remote outposts vulnerable.