Morris Island
| Morris Island | ||
|---|---|---|
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| Waters | Atlantic Ocean | |
| Archipelago | Sea Islands | |
| Geographical location | 32 ° 42 '3 " N , 79 ° 53' 16" W | |
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| surface | 3.4 km² | |
| Residents | uninhabited | |
Morris Island is a 3.4 square kilometer uninhabited island in Charleston Harbor Bay on the Atlantic coast of the state of South Carolina in the southeastern United States of America . It is located in the outer area of the deep water harbor of Charleston and therefore had an important strategic importance during the Civil War . The island can only be reached by water.
The island, which is included in the Sea Islands , was heavily fortified during the American Civil War, with the fortifications being concentrated on Fort Wagner . The island was fiercely contested during the fighting for Charleston and the campaign of the Union Army . The island was best known as the scene of the failed attack of the 54th Regiment of the Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry , which consisted exclusively of African American soldiers. This attack, in which more than 50 percent of the men died, and the history of the regiment were thematized in the feature film Glory (1989).
After the Confederates gave up the island in 1863, it was occupied by the Union. In order to eliminate the artillery in Fort Sumter , the Union moved 520 prisoner-of-war soldiers from the Confederation to the island, where they served as a human shield . This came in response to the Union's use of Union prisoners as a shield for Charleston to prevent the Union from firing on the city. Their story came to be known as the Immortal Six Hundred .
On Morris Island is the Morris Island Lighthouse ( Morris Island Light ), which no longer fulfills a function today, but has been replaced by the lighthouse in the north of the port on Sullivan's Island .
The soil erosion destroyed most of the fortifications on the island, including parts of Fort Wagner. Plans to transform the island into a luxurious residential area resulted in disputes between various interest groups who demanded the island be protected as a nature reserve or as part of the Fort Sumter National Monument .
Harry Huffman, a contractor from Charleston and owner of the island, tried to sell the island for $ 12.5 million on eBay . At that time he was in negotiations with a merger of various nature conservation organizations, but he said he wanted to find out the current value of the island by setting an online auction. Charleston's zoning guidelines allow a maximum of 5 houses on the island. After years of struggling to change the edition, Huffmann said he just wanted to sell the island, which had changed hands in the 1980s for $ 3 million.
On February 2, 2006, the Trust for Public Land , a non-profit foundation for nature conservation, announced that it had acquired the island for $ 4.5 million. It is now to be protected from structural development.
literature
- Fitzgerald Ross, Richard Barksdale Harwell: Cities and Camps of the Confederate States , University of Illinois Press, 1997, ISBN 0252066421
- Douglas W. Bostick, Richard L. Beck: The Morris Island Lighthouse: Charleston's Maritime Beacon , The History Press, 2008, ISBN 1596294701