This day in Charleston

August 22

2 entries · 1863–1864

1863The city
Where Did the First Shell Fall?
Where Did the First Shell Fall?Library of Congress

The Swamp Angel opens on Charleston

At half past one in the morning an 8-inch, 200-pounder Parrott rifle mounted on pilings in the marsh between Morris and James Islands — the Marsh Battery, known to the army and then to the world as the Swamp Angel — fired the first shell into Charleston, four and a half miles away. Sixteen rounds went in that night. The bombardment of the city had begun, and it ran for the next eighteen months. The Bombardment of Charleston →

Official Records, Series I, Vol. 28, Pt. 1

1864Fort Sumter

A year of the bombardment of Charleston

Thirty-four Parrott shells during the night, nine missing, and forty-two mortar shells. No casualties. It was the first anniversary of the night the Swamp Angel put its first shell into Charleston, and the city had been under fire ever since.

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.