Richard Lee Clark papers concerning the Civil War

Collection

Identifier: MS0052

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

Collection of Civil War documents relating to the daily operations of the Union Army at their camp at Port Royal, S.C.

Dates

1862 - 1865

Creator

Clark, Richard Lee (Person)

Conditions Governing Access

Collection is open for research.

Conditions Governing Use

Some material may be copyrighted or restricted. It is the patron's obligation to determine and satisfy copyright or other case restrictions when publishing or otherwise distributing materials found in the collections.

Biographical / Historical

Fort Welles was originally a Confederate fort called Fort Walker on Hilton Head Island in South Carolina. After the Battle of Port Royal Sound in November of 1861, the Union Army occupied the fort and changed its name to Fort Welles in honor of Gideon Welles, the U.S. Secretary of the Navy. The Union Army established a base next to the fort that eventually housed 40,000 troops. One of the main reasons the Union Army wanted to capture the fort was to provide a logistics base to support the blockade of other Southern ports. To aid in this effort, the Army built a long pier adjacent to the fort and installed a rail system to offload supplies from cargo ships coming in from the North and then load blockading vessels with those supplies. The fort remained in Union hands for the duration of the war and was changed to the Post of Hilton Head in April 1866 to cover all of the remaining military facilities on the island. In January of 1868, the Post was abandoned and the military left the island for good.

Source: http://www.fortwiki.com/Fort_Welles

Extent

0.1 Linear Feet

Language

English

Additional Description

Overview

Collection of Civil War documents relating to the daily operations of the Union Army at their camp at Port Royal, S.C.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Gift of Richard L. Clark, 1979.

Available Online

The Richard Lee Clark papers concerning the Civil War have been digitized and are available online: https://goldmine.uncc.edu/index/render/pid/mss:clarric