Major General Godfrey Weitzel, born in Germany, was a noted and valued commmander of units of the Western Army of General Sherman in the Civil War. He commanded the XXV Corp Black troops. They captured and held Richmond. Weitzel was a West Point graduate of 1855 with a specialty of military engineering.

A replay of these times will be done by one of his descendents Sunday, August 3 at the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) Civil War Museum in Germantown, Philadelphia.

This GAR website is: www.garmuslib.org

For readers who may not know, the land of Beaufort County below Yemassee was only in the Confederacy for about six months at the beginning of the Civil War. Admiral DuPont and his ships came up Port Royal Sound and took over Beaufort, NOB and SOB through the rest of the war. The Quakers from MA and PA soon after settled on St. Helena Island and began the Penn School to educate the newly freed slaves - one of them was a black teacher named Charlotte Forten.