On September 5, 1940, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed "into law a bill directing the Library of Congress to transfer to the Beaufort [Township] library 'books of the same value as those taken by the United States Army when it defeated Confederate forces along the South Carolina coast' during the Civil War. The squabbling with the US government about recompense for the libraries confiscated by the Union Army only went on for 75 years! (I do so admire persistence as a character trait.)
To learn more about the history of the confiscated collection, click here.
For a digital facsimile of the inventory of books seized, click here.
Note: I was reminded of the anniversary by a news clipping I found as I was cleaning off my desk in the 1st floor. Who knows the extent of treasures yet to be found! Former BDC docent, Nancy Gooding Guthridge, the sister of then US Representative, Clara G. McMillan sent me the clipping a while back. Rep. McMillan, a middle-aged widow rearing 5 sons whose election was not without controversy itself, succeeded where powerful political men, including Robert Smalls and his enemy, William Elliott, had failed.
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