This day in Charleston

April 25

2 entries · 1863–1864

1863The blockade

Red lights answered from the shore

The commander of the USS Pawnee passed on what the master of the Mayflower had seen four miles south of North Edisto: lights aboard a vessel inshore, answered from the beach by a number of red lights, and at daylight a steamer standing eastward burning black smoke. The blockade was broken every week by exactly this — a signal, a tide and a fast hull.

Official Records of the Navies, Series I, Vol. 14

1864Fort Sumter

A monitor takes off her outriggers

An additional monitor appeared inside the bar, and the picket monitor “has removed her defensive outrigging” — the anti-torpedo booms rigged after the Housatonic. Two months on, the fleet's fear of the submarine was beginning to relax.

Fort Sumter post returns, OR I, 35, Pt. 1

Entries are dated from the War of the Rebellion official records, the naval official records and contemporary Charleston sources. Browse the whole year.