This day in Charleston
3 entries · 1862–1864
Major General David Hunter assumed command at Hilton Head. Within six weeks he issued General Orders No. 11 declaring the enslaved people of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida forever free, and began raising the first regiment of Black troops in the South. Lincoln revoked the order; the regiment, eventually, stood.
Official Records, Series I, Vol. 6
An affair on James Island, a week before Du Pont’s ironclads crossed the bar. The Confederate line on James Island — Secessionville, Fort Johnson, Battery Cheves, later Simkins — was the hinge of the whole defense: lose it and the city was under close artillery fire from the land side.
Official Records, Series I, Vol. 14
An affair at Spring Island in the Broad River country behind Hilton Head. By the spring of 1864 the lines around Charleston had settled into a stalemate that neither side could break, and the fighting in the department was reduced to raids, pickets and artillery.
Official Records, Series I, Vol. 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.