“The sense of that crush I feel at certain times even now.”: Jacob Stroyer and the Battle for Fort Sumter

Authors

Susanna Ashton, Clemson UniversityFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

Spring 2014

Publication Title

The South Carolina Review

Volume

46

Issue

2

Publisher

Clemson University Press

Abstract

In the summer of 1864, fourteen-year-old Jacob Stroyer was sent to work in Fort Sum-ter. He did not go willingly. Stroyer was a slave owned by the wealthy Mrs. Matthew R. Singleton and was sent from the large Kensington plantation outside Columbia, SC to labor for the Confederate cause. Th e Confederate Corps of Engineers called upon slave owners to contribute their enslaved people’s labor to the problem of construction and fortification of roads, bridges, and key defensive sites. Stroyer explained that fifteen slaves from his plantation “were sent to work on fortifications each year during the war.”²

Comments

Copyright is held by Clemson University Press. https://cup.sites.clemson.edu/scr/volumes/scr-46n2.html

Recommended Citation

Please use publisher's recommended citation. https://cup.sites.clemson.edu/scr/volumes/scr-46n2.html