Америка Азамат Соғысы және Митчелвил қаласының тарихы

Mitchelville was a town built during the American Civil War for formerly enslaved people, located on what is now Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. It was named for one of the local Union Army generals, Ormsby M. Mitchel. The town was a population center for the enterprise known as the Port Royal Experiment.

During the first year of the Civil War, on November 7, 1861, Union forces consisting of approximately 60 ships and 20,000 men under the command of Union Navy Captain Samuel F. DuPont and Army General Thomas W. Sherman attacked Confederate forces commanded by Brig. Gen. Thomas F. Drayton (a local planter) defending Hilton Head Island at Fort Walker and Fort Beauregard. By 3:00 p. m., the Confederate forces had retreated from the forts; when Union troops landed on Hilton Head Island, they encountered no resistance and discovered that the white inhabitants of the island had already fled to the mainland. Hilton Head Island became the Union's southern headquarters for the war and a military supply depot. Fortifications (such as Fort Howell), a hospital, barracks, and other utilitarian structures were built for the military, which at times numbered 30,000 men. The island was used as a staging ground for the blockading of Savannah and Charleston. Within two days of the Union capture of the island, approximately 150 former slaves (or those left behind by the Hilton Head Island planters when they fled the island) came to the Union army's encampment; by December 15, approximately 320 former slaves had sought refuge at the Union army's encampment. One Union soldier stationed on Hilton Head at the time recounted:

In February 1862, there were at least 600 contrabands living in Union encampments on Hilton Head Island. These former slaves were regarded as "contraband of war" or as simply "contrabands;" they were not yet technically "freedmen", and the Union army was unsure of what to do with them. General Thomas West Sherman repeatedly wrote his superiors in Washington asking for guidance regarding, and supplies for, the "contrabands". Official policy regarding "contrabands" varied between Union occupied areas, a problem which persisted throughout the war. But by October 1862, however, Union leaders believed this approach was a failure, as living conditions for the freedmen were substandard and there was a need to separate the soldiers from the former slaves, and vice versa:

Maj. Gen. Ormsby M. Mitchel, Commander of the Department of the South and headquartered at Hilton Head, decided to develop a town for the former slaves. Built in a cotton field on the former Drayton Plantation and in close proximity to the military camps, it was eventually known as Mitchelville after the commander. Unlike other contraband camps, Mitchelville was developed as a regular town, with roads, one quarter acre lots, elected officials (some officials were appointed by the Union military, however), a church, various laws addressing such issues as community behavior and sanitation, collection of taxes, and a compulsory education law for children between the ages of six and fifteen. This was likely the first such law in the South. By late November 1862, Federal tax commissioners were able to fix taxes on local plantations, with Fish Hall (Tract No. 3) being assessed as being worth $5,200.00, with $156.00 in taxes owed. When Thomas Drayton failed to pay the taxes due on the property, it was advertised for sale by the Federal government. The government purchased it, holding it until 1875, when white Democrats regained control of the state legislature shortly before the end of Reconstruction. The town or village continued relatively intact into the early 1870s. But sometime in the early 1880s, Mitchelville ceased being a true town. It dissolved to a small, kinship based community that survived into the 1920s. A 1920 topographic map of Hilton Head Island shows a cluster of buildings centered around a church. Previous archaeological investigations have concluded that the majority of Mitchelville was abandoned by c. 1890.

Military sawmills provided free lumber for the houses, which were built by the freedmen. Each house was on a one quarter acre lot. The typical house measured approximately 12x12ft, was of frame construction, had wood pier foundations, glass paned windows, wood floors, weatherboard siding, wood shingle roofs, and having either metal stoves or brick and/or "tabby" or wattle and daub ("stick") chimneys. There were four stores in Mitchelville; several closed down after the military left, perhaps because they had survived by overcharging the residents (supplies sold in Mitchelville were priced nearly 600% higher than those sold by the AMA). (Trinkley/CRC 21 1987).

Congress soon passed laws restoring lands confiscated by the U. S. government to the Southern landowners who had owned the land prior to the Civil War. In April 1875, the Drayton Plantation lands were returned to the Drayton family. Unfortunately, the U. S. government failed to plan for the protection and preservation of Mitchelville, and its future looked bleak. However, the Drayton family was no longer interested in farming the property, and sold the land to anyone who was interested and had money – including many freedmen.