Interview with Ron Roth, author of The Civil War in the South Carolina Lowcountry: How a Confederate Artillery Battery and a Black Union Regiment Defined the War

This is an interview with Ron Roth about his recent book, The Civil War in the South Carolina Lowcountry. To read a review of the book click here.

What sparked your interest in this topic and inspired you to write this book?

In my capacity as a former museum director and curator, I was approached by the Beaufort Society for Historic Preservation to design and mount an exhibition on the Beaufort Volunteer Artillery (BVA).

You center your book on the area around Beaufort, SC and place the experience of the Civil War there in the context of the larger conflict. Why do you think Beaufort had such a unique experience in the Civil War?

In the antebellum years of the Civil War, Beaufort was the home and playground of some of the wealthiest families in the United States.  Their wealth was built on a high-quality grade of cotton largely unique the South Carolina Lowcountry and made possible by the labor of multiple generations of enslaved African Americans. It was also the epicenter of secessionist fever in pre-war South Carolina.  

It was their unique fate that all this wealth in human property was swept away by the successful attack and occupation of Beaufort, early in the war, by Union forces after the Battle of Port Royal.

This event transformed the lives of the approximately 30,000 enslaved Blacks in the region that were freed, providing Blacks and whites with a rehearsal, as one historian has commented, on what was to come. No social, political, and racial transformation of the sort had ever been undertaken in the country before, and Beaufort was, in some ways, the laboratory for this experiment, with historic and lasting consequences.  

You demonstrate in your book that the 1st South Carolina Regiment was the first African American unit recruited during the war, yet they do not seem to get much recognition. Has this unit been largely overlooked, and why?

Even today, the contribution of the 1st South Carolina Regiment and the approximately quarter-of-a million African American soldiers who ultimately fought for the Union in the final years of the war have, in my opinion, never been adequately recognized.  I believe most historians now believe these Black troops played a crucial role in the Union war effort and ultimate victory. 

Some historians like James McPherson have worked to correct this, but traditional notions about the war persist.  For instance, the seminal television series on the Civil War produced by Ken Burns makes only passing reference to their contribution. One can only conclude that racial bias continues to linger in our understanding of the war.

The Beaufort Volunteer Artillery had a history that extended back to the Revolutionary War.  How did that prior unit history affect the role of the BVA in the Civil War?

The men of the BVA took great pride in their unit’s historic pedigree.  Initially organized as the Beaufort Independent Company of Artillery in 1776, it garrisoned Fort Lyttleton on the Beaufort River, protecting Beaufort and Port Royal from British attacks.  Later in 1779, they fought with the Continental Army in an unsuccessful attempt to capture Savannah, Georgia from the British, then were captured and held prisoner for the remainder of the war.  Throughout the antebellum era the unit continued its identity as the military arm of the Beaufort region, drilling regularly at the Beaufort Arsenal.  Thus, on the eve of the Civil War, it had an outstanding and well-known reputation throughout the South Carolina Lowcountry and was called upon to play a leading role in the war.

How does the experience of these men compare to other Confederate units?

The BVA’s long history and continuing drilling and social activities right up to the beginning of the war gave it an expertise and experience far exceeding most other artillery batteries of the Confederacy. In my view it qualifies as one of the great, veteran fighting units of the Confederacy, and arguably one of its most exceptional artillery batteries.

The narrative of the book places these two units side-by-side. How do you think they defined the Civil War?

The BVA was comprised of an elite class of 48 families owning 141 plantations. As the privileged cream of southern society and among the wealthiest Americans in the country—“the finest product of Southern civilization”—raised and bred in the heart of the hotbed of southern secession, they had the most to lose should the Confederacy be defeated.  They represent, perhaps more than any other group, the fire-eating, unrepentant core of the Confederacy, and as such define an especially important strata of Southern society the reader should know about.

It is one of the great ironies of Civil War history, that these very plantation scions owned the enslaved Blacks that would be the core of the first African American regiment to be enlisted and serve in the United States Army.  Their stories of subjugation and struggle and their ultimate overcoming of the sin of American slavery, best define the state of four million Africans on the eve of the war.

As you immersed yourself in this research, what was the thing that surprised you the most or that you were the most excited to discover? 

I discovered in the records of the South Carolina Bureau of Archives and History a tiny notebook, just larger than the size of a postage stamp, a daily record book from 1864, hand written, summarizing the results of several of the BVA’s target practice sessions.  This data I believe is a substantial contribution to our understanding of the uses of the most common ordinance of a Confederate battery, and their accuracy in the hands of a veteran unit like the BVA.

Retired museum director Ron Roth curated an exhibition on the history of the Beaufort Volunteer Artillery for the Historic Beaufort Foundation in Beaufort, South Carolina. He was a featured speaker on the Beaufort Volunteer Artillery at the 2017 Annual Civil War Symposium of the South Carolina Department of Archives and History and was a seasonal historian and licensed guide for the Gettysburg National Military Park.