The Camp Saxton Site is a property located in

Port Royal, South Carolina Port Royal is a town on Port Royal Island in Beaufort County, South Carolina, United States. The population was 14,220 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Hilton Head Island-Bluffton-Beaufort metropolitan area. Port Royal is home to Marine Cor ...

. It was listed in the National Register Historic Places on February 2, 1995.

Location and History

Situated along the

Beaufort River The Beaufort River is a river in the South West of Western Australia. The river was named in 1835 by John Septimus Roe, Surveyor General of Western Australia, after a friend Rear Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort who was Hydrographer of the Navy fr ...

, it is bounded on the east by the river, on the west by the

United States Naval Hospital Beaufort Naval Hospital Beaufort is a United States Navy hospital located in Beaufort, South Carolina. History Commissioned on April 29, 1949, the hospital is one of only a handful of its kind that sits within its own complex rather than within a larger ...

complex, on the north by the boat basin off the Beaufort River and on the south by the ruins of the Fort Frederick Heritage Preserve. The site contains an intact portion of the U.S. Union Army camp occupied from early November 1862 to late January 1863 by the 1st South Carolina Volunteers. The camp was the site of the Emancipation Proclamation ceremonies on January 1, 1863. In January 2017, the Camp Saxton Site became part of the newly created

Reconstruction Era National Monument The Reconstruction Era National Historical Park, formerly Reconstruction Era National Monument is a United States National Historical Park in Beaufort County, South Carolina established by President Barack Obama in January 2017 to preserve and ...

, established by President

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the ...

.Emma Dumain
Just under the wire, Obama establishes national monument to Reconstruction era in Beaufort County
''The Post & Courier'' (January 12, 2017).Jessicah Lawrence
Beaufort designated as Reconstruction era national monument
''Beauford Today'' (January 16, 2017).

References

1862 establishments in South Carolina African-American history of South Carolina Archaeological sites on the National Register of Historic Places in South Carolina British forts in the United States Buildings and structures in Beaufort County, South Carolina Colonial forts in South Carolina Forts in South Carolina Military facilities on the National Register of Historic Places in South Carolina National Register of Historic Places in Beaufort County, South Carolina South Carolina in the American Civil War {{BeaufortCountySC-geo-stub