Off The Beaten Path
Union troops created folly’s first roads
The first roads on Folly Island were cut by Union troops camped there during the Civil War. Thanks to the barrier island’s thick foliage and high canopy, the North was able to move troops and artillery throughout the island without tipping off the Confederate troops on Morris Island to the scale of their presence.
“It was so well covered that Confederate pickets and spies did not realize that a tremendous battery armed with 47 guns was being constructed at the east end of the island until the morning when these guns opened up and drove the Confederate forces away from the west end of Morris Island,” wrote James Allen in a May 31, 1925 article in the News and Courier. “It shows how completely screened this old military road was from hostile observation.” The roads cut by the thousands of Union troops stationed on Folly Island in 1863-64 are now the same thoroughfares traversed by bicyclists and golf carts.
Image by Hass & Peale, Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Images like these are included in Stratton Lawrence’s book, Images of America: Folly Beach. To purchase your own personalized signed copies or to share a photo and story for next month’s Folly Flashback column, email Stratton at strattonlawrence@gmail.com.
