This day in Charleston
3 entries · 1862–1864
An affair on St. Helena Island, in the middle of the Federal sea-island country. By late 1862 St. Helena was the center of the Port Royal Experiment — Northern teachers, missionaries and superintendents working with thousands of freedpeople on abandoned cotton land.
Official Records, Series I, Vol. 14
Captain Francis D. Lee wrote privately of his work: “I have for the last two years been perfecting a new mode of naval attack, on which I had hoped to make a reputation as a military engineer. The great object I had in view… was to defeat the enormous naval power of the enemy by a simple, cheap, and readily accomplished device.” His spar torpedo went on to sink the Housatonic, the Albemarle and the Patapsco.
Official Records, Series I, Vol. 28, Pt. 2
A committee of City Council gave notice that it would “continue to purchase all cattle at full prices, for the purpose of being sold in the market at the cost of obtaining such only,” and asked anyone willing to sell to come forward. Charleston was buying beef at market and selling it at cost to keep its people fed.
Charleston Mercury, 15 November 1864, p. 2 (notice dated 24 October 1864)
Entries are dated from the War of the Rebellion official records, the naval official records and contemporary Charleston sources. Browse the whole year.