Looking West Along Bay Street

William E. James was a Brooklyn photographer who joined more than a hundred other New Yorkers to go to Charleston in April 1865 when they heard that Brig. Gen. Robert Anderson would raise the United States flag over Fort Sumter. They arrived on April 11. James took pictures of the city, whose rubble from the Northern bombardment was being cleaned up. A few piles of it are shown in this photograph, taken by James a few days after his arrival. The cameraman was standing on the earthen “bombproof” built to store ammunition of the big Blakely cannon that had been blown up by Confederates during their evacuation of February 17-18. James’ image is thus a pictorial testament to what his fellow New Yorkers wanted to see: a conquered Rebel city now being restored to order under Federal soldiers’ occupation. Jack Thomson attributes this image to James. However, the photograph reproduced here has printed on back “H. C. FOSTER, PHOTOGRAPHER, CHARLESTON, S.C.”

(Library of Congress)

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.