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Aiken-Rhett House Preserves More Than Civil War History
Just weeks after the Civil War ended, Charleston saw a new kind of freedom take shape.
On May 15, 1865, James Redpath opened the Colonel Shaw Orphan House for Black children in two old buildings on Mary Street.
He named it after the white officer who led the 54th Massachusetts, the Black regiment that fought at Fort Wagner. Dorcas Richardson, once enslaved at the Aiken-Rhett House, ran the home that soon held over 100 kids…