This day in Charleston

June 2

2 entries · 1863–1864

1863Freedom

The Combahee River raid

Colonel James Montgomery took three gunboats up the Combahee with the 2nd South Carolina Volunteers, guided by intelligence gathered by Harriet Tubman. They burned the rice mills and plantations and carried off somewhere around 700 enslaved people in a single night. It is the only Civil War military operation known to have been planned with a woman’s direct hand in it.

Official Records, Series I, Vol. 14

1864Fort Sumter

Fifty-five mortar shells, nobody hurt

“Fifty-five mortar shells fired at fort since last report; 14 missed. Two Parrott shells fired this morning; 1 missed; nobody hurt.” Captain Mitchel's reports run to two or three lines a day through the summer of 1864.

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.