Beaufort, SC, Soft Shell Crab and Classic Car Festival April, 15'th

Gordon, that really sounds like a lot of fun.  Probably too early in the year for me to think of that long drive south, but at least I can dream about it.  We'll be going to the Outer Banks in May, right after Carlisle.  Nice seafood in Sam and Omie's, a great little restaurant down there in Nag's Head.

http://www.samandomies.net/

Gordon,

Do you live in Beaufort?  

There is a reason why so many movies have been filmed in Beaufort such as The Big Chill, The Great Santini, The Prince of Tides, Forrest Grump, etc, etc, etc.

Including Charleston, SC and Savannah, GA, my wife and I have been to Beaufort many times because all three are charming, simply beautiful towns.  When in Beaufort we always enjoy looking at all the many old historic homes still there. . . and we never fail to make it a point to drive out to nearby Saint Helena Island and get a shrimp burger at The Shrimp Shack. 

 We love everything about Beaufort. It is a wonderful place to visit.

Cliff

Cliff, I swear that the photo just above the Shrimp Shack is from my old back yard, looking out on the Broad River and down towards Hilton Head from our deck.  If you turned slightly to the right, you'd look across to Spring Island:

We moved down to Beaufort around 2002 and stayed until 2012 when an overwhelming number of factors drew us back to Massachusetts (called Grandkids).  

We loved everything about living in Beaufort;  Wonderful house, wonderful friends, great climate, great car club, you name it.  There is no question that it is the "Finest small town in the South" as noted by Southern Living Magazine for the last 15 years.

Next time on your way out to the Shrimp Shack, stop at the Penn Center and see where Martin Luther King wrote his "I have a Dream" speech.  Then, on your way back to RT 21 on Ball Park road, have lunch at "Gullah Grub" at the light at RT 21.  Get the Fish Chowder.  Thank me later.  The Shrimp Shack is for tourists - Gullah Grub is the real deal.  If you're downtown, find the Low Country Produce Market and Cafe on Carteret street.  Order anything - it's all great.  Stop at the "Chocolate Tree" on Carteret for chocolates - No place better.  If you are short on time, do Magnolia's for lunch at the corner of Carteret and Boundary streets.  Just a few blocks from Tidelholm, the house made famous in the "Big Chill".

Yes, we loved it there.  Still do.

Quick SC history:

General Sherman had already burned Atlanta and was on his "March to the sea".  He arrived in Savannah, GA on December 10'th, waited for almost two weeks before attacking but then met with little resistance as the 10,000 man confederate forces had escaped.  Sherman was amazed at the beauty of the city before him.  He telegraphed Abraham Lincoln on December 22'nd that the city was too beautiful to destroy and presented it to him as a Christmas present, intact.

Beaufort was a town about 2 days march from Savannah, but Sherman didn't venture there, because the Union Army (from Hilton head Island) and Navy (coming in from Calibouque Sound, just north of Hilton Head) captured the undefended town much earlier, without a shot being fired.  All of the planters had skeedadled and left their slaves in charge of their beautiful mansions and the slaves readily surrendered to the Union forces.  Beaufort became a Union Hospital town and many of the extravagant mansions and some of the churches were turned into hospitals and recovery facilities, serviced by the Union Navy right into the main part of the town.

Sherman continued on his march but bypassed Charleston (after cutting the telegraph lines and railroad tracks) and arrived, instead, in Columbia, which he sacked.  Rather than sack Charleston (which had already beed decimated by Union shelling from Moultrie Island just to the south) he attacked Columbia, leaving time for the Confederate forces to evacuate Charleston as well.   On the eve of his ex-fiance's birthday (she was from Charleston and had given up on him when he went off to war and she married another) he presented the city, intact as it then was, to his love, as a birthday present befitting her beauty.

Wow.

After the war, Sherman visited the Holy City and was stricken by the sight of his former home (he lived there while serving at Fort Moultrie in the 1840's).

"Any one who is not satisfied with war should go and see Charleston," the general later wrote, "and he will pray louder and deeper than ever that the country may in the long future be spared any more war."

But to this day, Charleston considers Sherman the very personification of the evils of war.