The Federal occupation of Beaufort immediately following the Battle of Port Royal on November 7, 1861, early in the American Civil War, swept away the Fullers, their friends, and their way of life. In early 1862 the Reverend Mansfield French, a Methodist minister sponsored by the American Missionary Association, headed an expedition to Beaufort to care for abandoned slaves and occupied this house. When in 1864 the house was auctioned to pay Federal real estate taxes, French purchased it. Active in Republican politics, he sought unsuccessfully to become the first United States senator of the Reconstruction era from South Carolina. His son, Winchell, founded a Republican newspaper here, The Beaufort Tribune.