This day in Charleston

August 1

2 entries · 1863–1864

1863Morris Island

Seven heavy platforms in the second parallel

The last heavy gun platform in the second parallel was laid — seven in all: two 8-inch Parrott rifles in Battery Brown and five 100-pounder Parrotts in Batteries Rosecrans and Meade. These were the guns that would breach Fort Sumter from four thousand yards, a range at which nobody had ever breached masonry before.

Major Brooks’ journal, OR I, 28, Pt. 1

1864The blockade

Seizure of the sloop Racer

The British sloop Racer was seized off the South Carolina coast. By the summer of 1864 the risk had shifted: fewer runners tried Charleston, more went to Wilmington, and the ones that came here were smaller, faster and carried less.

Official Records of the Navies, Series I, Vol. 15

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