Beaufort’s First Historian: An Evening with Dr. John A. Johnson (1819-93)

In 1873, during the heyday of Radical Reconstruction, a physician and former Confederate soldier named Dr. John A. Johnson wrote a history of Beaufort, South Carolina. The resulting work — Beaufort and the Sea Islands: Their History and Traditions — is informative, eloquent, and deeply strange. It offers a unique window into how one white Beaufortonian tried to cope with a difficult post-Civil War present by immersing himself in a more congenial pre-Civil War past.

About the Presenter

Dr. James Shinn, Jr. is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of South Carolina Beaufort, where he teaches a range of courses in U.S. history. He has researched and written extensively about the history of the United States in the 19th century. Shinn received his PhD in History from Yale University in 2020.