Battery Saxton, constructed here in 1862, stood in the second line of earthworks built by Federal troops occupying Beaufort during the Civil War. Laid out by the 1st New York Engineers with the assistance of black laborers, it held 3 8 inch siege howitzers and was occupied from 1862 to 1865 as one of two batteries anchoring a line from Battery Creek to the Beaufort River. It was named for Brig. Gen. Rufus Saxton, a Massachusetts native and ardent abolitionist who served for most of the war in and around Beaufort in the Union Dept. of the South. As military governor of the Georgia and South Carolina sea islands from 1862 to 1865, he led the way in educating freedmen and in raising and training black units for service in the U.S. Army. Saxton later served as assistant commissioner for the Freedmen's Bureau for South Carolina and Georgia and Florida from 1865 to 1866.