This day in Charleston

August 2

2 entries · 1863–1864

1863Morris Island

Boiler iron off a blockade runner

Unable to keep the hides lining his sandbag embrasures from being blown apart by the guns, Brooks sent a squad to strip plates of sheet and boiler iron from the wreck of the blockade runner Ruby, ashore on Morris Island. The Federal siege works were partly built out of the ships that had been trying to supply Charleston.

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

1864Fort Sumter

A hundred and twenty-six shots, nine misses

“One hundred and twenty-six shots fired at fort, 9 missed; 45 mortar shells, 12 missed. Dr. McCauley slightly wounded, but still on duty. Negro killed.” The fort's surgeon stayed at his post; the workman is not named.

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.