This day in Charleston
2 entries · 1863
Major Stephen Elliott reported how Fort Sumter had been held: “Having for several nights expected a boat attack, I had one-third of the garrison under arms on the parapet and the remainder” ready below. The navy’s storming party rowed into a garrison that had been waiting for it for a week.
Official Records, Series I, Vol. 28, Pt. 1
The repulse settled the question of Fort Sumter for the rest of the war: it could be knocked to pieces by artillery and it could not be walked into. The army and the navy each blamed the other for going in separately. Charleston, which had watched its harbor turn to rubble all summer, took the news as a victory, and it was.
Official Records of the Navies, Series I, Vol. 14
Entries are dated from the War of the Rebellion official records, the naval official records and contemporary Charleston sources. Browse the whole year.