1860–1865
Timeline
The events the photographs record, in order.
The Great Fire of 1861
Fire broke out on the evening of 11 December 1861 and burned a swathe across the peninsula from the Cooper to the Ashley, gutting Institute Hall, the Circular Church and the Cathedral of St. John and St. Finbar. The burnt district it left was still unrepaired when the Federal photographers arrived in 1865.
12 photograph(s)
The Bombardment of Charleston
Federal batteries on Morris Island opened on the city at 1:30 a.m. on 22 August 1863 with the "Swamp Angel", and shelling continued on and off until the Confederate evacuation. More than 12,500 Parrott projectiles are estimated to have been fired into Charleston — the longest bombardment of any American city.
1 photograph(s)
The Fall of Charleston
Confederate forces evacuated Charleston overnight on 17–18 February 1865, firing stores and shipping as they went. The first Federal troops into the city were men of the 21st United States Colored Infantry, many of them recruited from the South Carolina lowcountry.
3 photograph(s)
The Martyrs of the Race Course
Freedpeople of Charleston reinterred the Union prisoners who had died at the Washington Race Course, enclosed the ground and lettered an archway "Martyrs of the Race Course". On 1 May 1865 some ten thousand people gathered to dedicate it — an observance historian David W. Blight has argued is the earliest known Decoration Day.
1 photograph(s)