The people
People
17 people who shaped what happened at Charleston between 1860 and 1865 — soldiers and sailors on both sides, officials, civilians, the enslaved and the free.
Most of them were not Charlestonians. A man could decide the fate of this harbor from a fort in the middle of it, or from a headquarters in another state, and never keep a house in the city. What these people have in common is not an address but a part in what happened. Where a residence, a property or a grave is documented it is recorded and sourced; where it is not, the page says so rather than guessing.
For the inhabitants of the city themselves — some 5,600 of them, by name, trade and street — see the Charleston directory, drawn from the 1852 directory and the 1861 city census.
Homes and plantationsBurial sitesMethodology
Allegiance
Role
Record
A
- Robert Anderson1805 – 1871officer, artillerist · UnionThe Federal major who moved his garrison to Fort Sumter, surrendered it in April 1861, and came back four years to the day to raise the same flag.placesservice
B
- P. G. T. Beauregard1818 – 1893officer, engineer · ConfederateThe Confederate who took Fort Sumter, and the commander under whom Charleston withstood the siege and the long bombardment.placesservice
C
- John C. Calhoun1782 – 1850politician, official, planterThe architect of nullification, dead a decade before secession, whose grave was dug up and hidden during the war to keep Federal soldiers from it.burialplaces
D
- Abner Doubleday1819 – 1893officer, artillerist · UnionAnderson's second-in-command at Fort Moultrie and Fort Sumter, who aimed and ordered the first Union shot of the war.placesservice
- Mary DoubledaycivilianAn officer's wife at Fort Moultrie, refused lodging in Charleston because of who her husband was, who left the city three months before the guns opened.home
E
- Stephen Elliott? – 1866officer, artillerist · ConfederateCommanded Fort Sumter from September 1863 to May 1864, through the second great bombardment; found a silenced fort and left a formidable earthwork.placesservice
G
- Quincy A. Gillmoreofficer, engineer · UnionCommanding the Department of the South during the 1863 operations against Charleston, and the engineer who demolished Fort Sumter from four thousand yards.placesservice
H
- Francis Huger Harleston? – 1863officer, artillerist · ConfederateCaptain of the 1st South Carolina Artillery, mortally wounded inspecting the obstructions on the exterior slope of Fort Sumter.placesservice
- John H. Houstonsoldier, engineer, artisan · ConfederateA private of the engineer detail at Fort Sumter who set and recovered the obstructions on the exterior slopes, under fire, for more than a year.placesservice
- Thomas A. Hugueninofficer, soldier · ConfederateThe last Confederate commander of Fort Sumter, and twice the last man out of a well-defended post.placesservice
J
- John Johnson1829 – 1907officer, engineer, author · ConfederateEngineer in charge at Fort Sumter from the ironclad attack of April 1863 to the evacuation, and afterwards the historian of the defense.placesservice
M
- John C. Mitchel? – 1864officer, artillerist · ConfederateCaptain of the 1st South Carolina Artillery, commanding Fort Sumter when he was killed on the ramparts, aged twenty-four.placesservice
R
- Alfred Moore Rhett1829 – ?officer, artillerist · ConfederateColonel of the 1st South Carolina Artillery, and commander of Fort Sumter through the ironclad attack of 7 April 1863 and the first great bombardment.placesservice
- Roswell S. Ripley1823 – 1887officer, artillerist · ConfederateAn Ohioan who married into Charleston and commanded its harbor defenses through most of the siege.service
- Edmund Ruffin1794 – 1865civilian · ConfederateVirginia agricultural reformer and secessionist, present at Cummings Point when the batteries opened on Fort Sumter.
S
- Robert Gould Shaw1837 – 1863officer, soldier · UnionColonel of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry, killed on the parapet of Battery Wagner and buried in the common trench with his men.burialplacesservice
- Robert Smalls1839 – 1915enslaved person, pilot, sailor, mariner, politicianEnslaved wheelman of the Charleston steamer Planter, who took her out of the harbor past the Confederate batteries in May 1862 and delivered her to the blockadiservice