Effects of a Northern Shell

Requiescat in pace is the Latin phrase for “may he rest in peace,” yet in this case, it’s anything but that. A Federal artillery shell has plunged down, struck the horizontal tombstone, shattering it to bits, and blowing out a side wall. It is the Mathews family tomb. The head of the family, whose name was lost in the shell explosion, had died in 1841; five more of his family had been entombed here. Of course, shells can’t wake the dead, but they can make more of them. Confederate Maj. Henry Bryan counted five people killed or mortally wounded by Union artillery fire, Aug. 21, 1863-Jan. 5, 1864: Mrs. Hawthorne, No. 70 Church street, wounded by shell in right side, and died six weeks after; Miss Plane, corner Meeting and Market, left foot crushed by shell, and died in six days; Mr. William Knighton, corner Meeting and Market, right leg taken off, and died in four days; Mr. John Doscher, of German Fire Company, wounded at fire of December 25, and since died; Rebecca, slave of Mr. Lindsay, No. 5 Beaufain street, killed instantly by a shell.

This is the caption as printed in 100 Significant Civil War Photographs: Charleston in the War. It has not yet been through this site’s research and fact-checking pass.