APRIL FINE ESTATES, ART & STERLING SILVER
Lot 147:
Description
Group of Dug Civil War Relics and Booklet on Civil War Bullets. Dug on Willtown Bluff Plantation by owners. PROVENANCE: Willtown Plantation, Willtown Bluff, Adams Run SC, At four o’clock on the morning of Friday, July 10, 1863, the First South Carolina Volunteers of the US Colored Troops and three federal steamers used the cover of a dense fog to sail up the South Edisto River. Their mission was to destroy a railroad bridge about thirty miles southwest of Charleston. The railroad line, which connected Charleston and Savannah, played a major role in supplying South Carolina?s largest city as well as moving goods from the port of Charleston inland. When the First South Carolina Volunteers put ashore at Willtown Bluff Plantation, they quickly overran the Confederate artillery batteries and small detachments of militia posted there. Colonel Hugh Kerr Aiken then dispatched from nearby Adams Run with his Sixth South Carolina Cavalry Regiment. After a brisk skirmish of several hours, Aiken pushed back the Union troops and destroyed one of the steamers.The federal steamers had nearly reached their target, the destruction of which would have been devastating to Charleston. The Union army?s ill-fated assault on Battery Wagner took place eight days later. Although this bloody battle on Morris Island is more famous, the Sixth South Carolina Cavalry?s action at Willtown Bluff averted disaster for Charleston by preventing the destruction of the vital railroad bridge over the South Edisto River, keeping the city?s supply line to Savannah open.
Condition: antique, dug relics
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