This day in Charleston
2 entries · 1861–1865
Lincoln directed that an expedition to provision Fort Sumter be made ready to sail by 6 April. He did not yet order it to go. The decision he had been avoiding for a month was now made in a single sentence, and the war followed from it within a fortnight.
Official Records, Series I, Vol. 1
A sworn statement taken aboard the flagship in Charleston Harbor: torpedoes had been ordered to be put down in the harbor, “but when the order came to leave, they went away without putting them down. Some were destroyed at the railroad depot.” The powder left at that depot had killed about 150 people on 18 February.
Official Records of the Navies, Series I, Vol. 16
Entries are dated from the War of the Rebellion official records, the naval official records and contemporary Charleston sources. Browse the whole year.