Raynor HCA 2014-04
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 5/1/2014
Mounted albumen photograph, 8” x 6,” to larger mount. This period 1862 photograph shows 39 slaves who were assembled for the photographic occasion which was taken by Henry P. Moore at Hilton Head, South Carolina, May 1862, on the seven-hundred-acre Fish Hill Plantation belonging to Thomas Fenwick Drayton. The plantation was largely dedicated to producing cotton. There were 102 slaves who worked and lived there. Within the group photograph are two infants, one slave woman balancing a basket of cotton on her head; a slave man balancing a water bucket on his head; a uniformed white officer is in the foreground, and second white civilian in the background. Absolutely great slave photograph! Thomas Drayton was a West Point graduate and a classmate of Jefferson Davis, who became his lifelong friend. He eventually owned 102 slaves at Fish Hill Plantation. With the coming of war, Jefferson Davis, the new President of the Confederate States of America, appointed Drayton as a brigadier general in 1861 and placed him in command of the military district at Port Royal, South Carolina.Drayton subsequently used Fish Hall Plantation, as headquarters in the defense of Hilton Head Island until 1861. Drayton assigned many of his own 102 slaves on the island to construct defenses and do other work to support the Confederates. Capt. Percival Drayton, his brother, served in the Union Fleet which participated in the Battle of Port Royal and captured Hilton Head from the Confederate army.
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