The Charleston Hotel

Constructed in 1839 at the corner of Meeting and Hayne Streets, the Charleston Hotel housed delegates to the Democratic National Convention of 1860. The delegates, divided over slavery, failed to agree on a presidential candidate, and broke along sectional lines. Northern Democrats later met in Baltimore and nominated Illinois senator Stephen A. Douglas. Southern Democrats named Vice President John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky. Both Democrats lost in the presidential election of 1860, when Republican Abraham Lincoln won just 40% of the U.S. popular vote, but carried enough Northern states to win a majority of Electoral College votes. The hotel survived both the Great Fire, December 1861, and the Federal artillery bombardment of Charleston, August 1863-February 1865. Note that to the right in this photograph, taken in the spring of 1865, a Union shell has plunged through the roof of the building and blown out its wall on Meeting Street.

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.