Note the Tree and Wall (second view)

General Hatch the Occupier The late Jack Thomson, in his authoritative Charleston at War: The Photographic Record 1860–1865 (2000), dates this image as having been taken on May 1, 1865. The date is important, for President Lincoln had been assassinated at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, just two weeks before Union General Hatch, occupying the Ashe house at the center of this photograph (26 South Battery) had black mourning cloth wound around the white columns of the adjacent house at 28 South Battery, which was owned by George Cook, Charleston’s most successful photographer (he owned a mansion on the Battery!). Cook and his family had left Charleston in late 1864; the closed shutters suggest that the Cook house was unoccupied (at Charleston in May, one appreciates sea breezes; residents would have opened those shutters). General Hatch’s headquarters flag hangs from the second floor piazza rail. Observe the tree in front of the house with nearby wall. Both were removed before the photographer took the view on the following page.

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.