Episode 189 The Burning of Darien

Southern Mysteries Podcast

Shannon Ballard

True Crime, Society & Culture, History

4.8 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 27 April 2026

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

One of the Civil War’s most controversial events unfolded on June 11, 1863, when Union forces entered Darien, Georgia, an undefended town of little strategic importance, and left it in flames. Homes, churches, businesses and one of the oldest Black congregations in the South were destroyed. The troops ordered to take part included the famed 54th Massachusetts, one of the first official Black regiments of the Civil War. But the story of who set the destruction in motion is more complicated than many people came to believe. Join the Community on Patreon: Want more Southern Mysteries? You can hear the Southern Mysteries show archive of 60+ episodes along with Patron exclusive podcast, Audacious: Tales of American Crime and more when you become a patron of the show. You can immediately access exclusive content now at patreon.com/southernmysteries 🎧 Explore More Southern Mysteries Visit SouthernMysteries.com for more episodes and source lists. 📱 Follow on Social Media: Facebook: Southern Mysteries PodcastInstagram: @southernmysteriesEmail: southernmysteriespodcast@gmail.com Episode Sources Burchard, Peter. “One Gallant Rush: Robert Gould Shaw and His Brave Black Regiment.” St. Martin’s Press, 1965. Burchard, Peter. “We’ll Stand by the Union: Robert Gould Shaw and the Black 54th Massachusetts Regiment.” Facts on File, 1993. Coulter, E.M. Writings on the burning of Darien, including his characterization of the destruction as a “barbaric act” and “wanton vandalism.” Duncan, Russell, editor. “Blue-Eyed Child of Fortune: The Civil War Letters of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw.” University of Georgia Press, 1992. Duncan, Russell. “Where Death and Glory Meet: Colonel Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th Massachusetts Infantry.” University of Georgia Press, 1999. Emilio, Luis F. “A Brave Black Regiment: History of the Fifty-Fourth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, 1863-1865.” Boston Book Co., 1894. Francis Lieber, “Instructions for the Government of Armies of the United States in the Field,” General Orders No. 100, April 24, 1863. Georgia Historical Society historical marker, “The Burning of Darien,” erected in 2001. Historical Marker Database, “The Burning of Darien,” marker transcription and location information. King, Spencer Bidwell Jr. “Darien: The Death and Rebirth of a Southern Town.” Mercer University Press, 1981. Levin, Kevin M. “James Montgomery, the Burning of Darien, and the Innocence of Robert Gould Shaw.” “Civil War Memory,” Oct. 23, 2023. Levin, Kevin M. “Vindicating Col. Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th.” “Civil War Memory,” May 19, 2013. Massachusetts Historical Society, “The Destruction of Darien, Georgia,” “The Beehive,” Oct. 25, 2017. National Museum of African American History and Culture, “The Combahee Ferry Raid.” National Museum of the United States Army, “Robert Gould Shaw.” National Park Service, “54th Massachusetts Regiment.” National Park Service, “Combahee River Ferry & Harriet Tubman Bridge.” National Park Service, “We Called Ourselves Combee: Freeing the Enslaved People of the Combahee River.” Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Volume XIV. Shaw-Minturn family papers, Massachusetts Historical Society, including Robert Gould Shaw’s June 1863 letters describing the burning of Darien. St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Darien, Georgia, church history materials. “Written in Glory: The 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment,” entries related to June 1863, July 1863 and the burning of Darien. Episode Music Out of the Mines, courtesy of Ross Gentry, Asheville, North Carolina.

Transcript

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0:00.0	June 11, 1863, Union forces steamed up the Altamaha River and entered the Georgia town of Darien.
0:18.0	By nightfall, the town was in flames, Homes, churches, businesses, and one of the
0:24.9	oldest black congregations in the South had been destroyed. What made the burning of Darien so
0:31.3	controversial was who did it, who objected to it, and why it happened at all.
0:42.7	The troops who followed orders to burn Darien included the famed 54th Massachusetts,
0:46.4	one of the first official black regiments of the Civil War.
0:52.6	But the story of who set the destruction in motion is more complicated than the version many people came to believe.
0:55.5	Welcome to Southern Mysteries, exploring Southern history and true crime.
1:00.8	I'm your host, Shannon Ballard.
1:03.5	This is episode 189, The Burning of Darien, Georgia.
1:13.0	Darien was a small town on the Georgia coast at the mouth of the Altamaha River,
1:18.6	founded in the 1730s by Scottish Highland settlers, who called their settlement New Inverness.
1:25.0	In one of the great ironies of its early history, some of those settlers had once
1:29.8	petitioned against slavery in Georgia. The petition failed. By the antebellum era, Darien had become
1:37.4	a prosperous port city, its wealth built on timber, cotton, rice, and the labor of enslaved people on the surrounding plantations.
1:47.5	By the summer of 1863, the Civil War had hollowed Darien out. The Confederate Army had taken most
1:55.4	of the able-bodied men. Union blockades had crippled trade. Refugees had fled inland due to the threat of federal
2:03.4	gunboats that had already raided up and down the coast. In slave people, knowing that the Union
2:09.1	Army brought freedom, had been escaping toward the federal positions on the sea islands in growing
2:15.0	numbers. By June of 1863, Darien was largely a ghost town. Of its 500 residents,
2:23.2	most had already fled. The ones who remained were women, children, and the elderly,
2:30.4	those who could not leave, or had nowhere to go. The river was quiet. The wharves were idle,
	...

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