About Charleston in the War

Charleston in the War is a photographic and documentary record of Charleston between 1860 and 1865: the photographs, the people in them, the places they were taken, the newspapers, the census, the city directories, and the printed reports of the officers who besieged and defended the city.

It grows out of 100 Significant Civil War Photographs: Charleston in the War by Stephen Davis (1948–2026) and Jack W. Melton Jr., and is published by Historical Publications LLC of Mount Pleasant, South Carolina.

How it is meant to be used

Every photograph is shown as its master scan first; a colorized reading, where one exists, is offered beside it and labeled as an interpretation. Every transcribed line — a census row, a directory entry, a passage from a report — carries a citation to the page or microfilm frame it was read from, so any reading can be checked against the original rather than taken on trust.

Where a reading is uncertain it is marked with a question mark rather than quietly resolved. Where accuracy has been measured, the figure is published beside the work it describes. That is the standard the site is held to, and it is why the citations are there.

More about the site

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Last reviewed 2 September 2026.