This day in Charleston
2 entries · 1863
On the day the great bombardment opened, Fort Sumter’s engineer reported “a working force of 450 laborers and mechanics… employed in two reliefs, day and night, upon the defenses of this post,” with a considerable sick list. Most of them were enslaved men, impressed from lowcountry plantations.
Official Records, Series I, Vol. 28, Pt. 2
At sunrise every heavy rifle on the Federal right that would bear, with the guns on the left and the Naval Battery, opened on the gorge wall of Fort Sumter, while the navy and the siege pieces held Battery Wagner down. Over the next week the fort’s walls were beaten into rubble. The bombardment of Fort Sumter, in one form or another, went on until 31 December.
Official Records, Series I, Vol. 28, 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.