This day in Charleston
3 entries · 1865
The blockade runner Deer stood in over the bar and was taken at Charleston — her master unaware that the city had changed hands during the night. She was among the last prizes of a trade that had kept Charleston alive for four years.
Official Records of the Navies, Series I, Vol. 16
Mayor Charles Macbeth surrendered the city on the morning of 18 February. The first Union troops in were men of the 21st United States Colored Infantry, many of them recruited from the South Carolina lowcountry, followed by detachments from Morris Island and by naval boat crews. They found the lower city burning and largely empty. The Fall of Charleston →
Official Records, Series I, Vol. 47
Powder left at the Northeastern Railroad depot on Chapel Street caught while townspeople — many of them children — scavenged the abandoned stores. The explosion and the fire that followed killed something on the order of 150 people. It was the worst single loss of life Charleston suffered in the war, and it happened after the fighting there was over.
Official Records, Series I, Vol. 47
Entries are dated from the War of the Rebellion official records, the naval official records and contemporary Charleston sources. Browse the whole year.