This day in Charleston
2 entries · 1862–1863
Through the summer of 1862 Charleston’s engineers worked on the harbor obstruction between Forts Sumter and Moultrie — piles, a rope entanglement to foul propellers, and the first of the torpedoes. When the ironclads came the following April, the obstruction was what turned them, without a shot being fired from it.
Official Records, Series I, Vol. 14
A boom built at the lumber-yard by Sergeant Samuel Clark of the New York Volunteer Engineers was floated down with the tide and made fast across the creek on the extreme left of the second parallel, securing the flank against Confederate boats. Splinter-proof shelters for the trench guard went up the same night.
Major Brooks’ journal, OR I, 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.