Beaufort Record Survival & Loss Narrative
What burned-courthouse folklore gets wrong—and where records actually survive for Beaufort County.
Record survival: Early Union occupation (Port Royal, Nov 1861) creates a parallel records universe—military, missionary, tax, and later Bureau series—while planter refugees leave trails inland. Not a simple burned-courthouse story.
- Date every problem against occupation vs inland enslavement timelines.
- What survives: occupation-era federal series; district/county civil; churches; Gullah community memory with careful citation.