Resources
Below you will find other primary and secondary sources as well as websites pertaining to the 1st SCV. Please contact us if you find more and we will add them to the list!
Published Primary Sources
The Complete Civil War Journal and Selected Letters of Thomas Wentworth Higginson, ed. Christopher Looby (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000).
- Here is the link to purchase, however portions can be found via Google Books.
A Woman Doctor's Civil War: Esther Hill Hawks' Diary. Edited by Gerald Schwartz (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1984).
- Hawks, like her husband, had a medical degree, and both assisted at a hospital for Black patients in Beaufort during the Civil War. Her medical care was on a volunteer basis, however, and she also provided education for formerly enslaved South Carolinians.
Published Secondary Sources
1st SC Specific
Ash, Stephen V. Firebrand of Liberty: The Story of Two Black Regiments that Changed the Course of the Civil War. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2008.
- A focus on the 1st & 2nd SC’s actions in Florida in early 1863 with a special attention to Thomas W. Higginson, Prince Rivers, Lyman Stickney and Charlotte Forten.
McCrae, Jr., Bennie, Curtis M. Miller and Cheryl Trowbridge-Miller. Nineteenth Century Freedom Fighters: The 1st South Carolina Volunteers. Charleston: Arcadia Publishing, 2006.
- A basic history of the 1st SC Volunteers/33rd USCT mainly supplemented by the first-hand accounts of Thomas W. Higginson.
Saucer, John. An We Ob Jubilee: The First South Carolina Volunteers. Oklahoma: Tate Publishing, 2014.
- Covers the early history of the regiment, primarily its formation in mid-to-late 1862 and its early maneuvers in early-to-mid 1863.
General
Dobak, William A. Freedom by the Sword: The U.S. Colored Troops, 1862-1867. Washington, D.C.: US Army, 2011.
- This book traces the major regions where USCT units served during the war. Chapters 2 & 3 focus on recruitment of 1st and 2nd SC Volunteers/ 33rd & 34th USCT as well as the history of these and other black units along the SC, GA and FL coastlines during the war. The 54th Massachusetts also plays a major role in these chapters since they were stationed in this region.
Smith, John David, (ed.), Black Soldiers in Blue: African American Troops in the Civil War Era (2002).
- Fourteen essays that tell the story of different Black U.S. soldiers and regiments during the war.
Websites that mention the 1st SCV
The Library of Congress created an excellent StoryMap about Susie King Taylor and her diary.
BlackPast.org has a few short pieces about the First as well as the Port Royal Experiment.
The House Divided Project at Dickinson College is an excellent online resource, and has an entire digital exhibit devoted to Prince Rivers.
Lowcountry Africana is a wonderful site that focuses on African American Geneaology in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. It has a general history of the 1st SCV as well as links to online primary source documents and geneaological resources.
The new International African American Museum in Charleston, SC has an active online Family History Center, which contains digitized pension records of 18 USCT soldiers. Perhaps some were part of the 1st SCV.
The Heritage Library specializes in geneaological research and Hilton Head History. This library focuses on soldiers from Hilton Head, like the 21st USCT, but also include 13 soldiers from the 1st SC/33rd USCT who came from Hilton Head. Many of these soldiers’ stories appear in their publication They Served: Stories of the United States Colored Troops from Hilton Head, South Carolina (2017).