This day in Charleston
2 entries · 1861
In the weeks after Port Royal, the planters of the Beaufort district fled inland, leaving some ten thousand enslaved people behind on the sea islands. What followed there — the Port Royal Experiment, the first Black regiments, the first freedmen’s schools in the South — began by accident, in November 1861, sixty miles from Charleston.
Official Records, Series I, Vol. 6
“In consequence of our fatiguing retreat from the island of Hilton Head, I am only now able to render you my official report of” the bombardment of Fort Walker. Colonel Wagener commanded the German Artillery of Charleston, and his men had just lost Port Royal.
Official Records, Series I, Vol. 6
Entries are dated from the War of the Rebellion official records, the naval official records and contemporary Charleston sources. Browse the whole year.