The Beacon on the Parapet

A beacon stands on the parapet of Fort Sumter — a timber frame carrying a light, put up on top of the wreck.

The reason is practical and says a great deal about the state of the harbor in 1865. Fort Sumter sits in the channel. Its lighthouse and the harbor's navigational marks had been extinguished or destroyed during four years of war, and a shipping channel with no lights is a channel nobody can use after dark. Getting Charleston working again meant getting vessels in and out, and that meant putting a light back on the shoal — even if the only available foundation was a ruined fort.

Below the beacon, the stepped ranks of gabions show how thoroughly the interior had been rebuilt in sand and wicker. The tiers are not decorative; each one is a revetted terrace holding the slope in place.

A navigation light going up on a fortification that had been shot to pieces is as clear a marker as any of the moment this photograph belongs to — the war finished, the port reopening.