CHARLESTON, CRADLE OF SECESSION
1861 - February 1865
1861
Jan. 9 -- What some say was the "real" first shot of the Civil War was fired from the Morris Island/Fort Johnson area at a United States merchant ship named Star of the West that was bound for Fort Sumter, either to simply bring food and medical supplies to the Federal troops stationed there, or to also bring arms and reinforcements, depending on whom you believe.
Jan. 28 -- The S.C. General Assembly approved Barnwell Rhett Jr.'s proposed design for a state flag featuring a blue background with a white palmetto tree centered and a white crescent with horns pointing upward in the left-hand corner,
Jan. 31 -- In the wake of Seccession, S.C. Attorney General Issac W. Hayne, who was serving Gov. Francis W. Pickens as an envoy to Washington, wrote to U.S. President Buchanan warning him that the U.S. possession and occupation of Fort Sumter "if continued long enough, must lead to a collision." (Source: Confederate South Carolina, p. 19-20)
Feb. 2 -- The Illustrated London News ran an illustration of the lobby of the Charleston Hotel as part of its coverage of the impending Civil War.
Feb. 6 -- Joseph Holt, U.S.President James Buchanan's Secretary of War, wrote to Isaac W. Hayne, who was S.C. Gov. Francis W. Pickens' attorney general and envoy to Washington (not to be confused with the Revolutionary hero), that Fort Sumter's purpose was the defense of Charleston Harbor and that if some "public enemy" menaced the city or the harbor, the fort's batteries would "be at once exerted for their protection." (Source: Confederate South Carolina, p. 20)
Feb. 7 -- S.C. Attorney General Isaac W. Hayne, replied to U.S. Secretary of War Joseph Holt's letter, received the day before, saying: "Are you not aware, that to hold in the territory of a foreign power a fortress against her will, avowedly for the purpose of protecting her citizens is perhaps the highest insult which one government can offer to another? But Fort Sumter was never garrisoned at all until South Carolina had dissolved her connection with your Government. This garrison entered it in the night with every circumstance of secrecy after spiking the guns and burning the gun carriages and cutting down the flag-staff of an adjacent fort which was then abandoned. South Carolina had not taken Fort Sumter into her own possession only because of her misplaced confidence in a government which deceived her." (Source: Confederate South Carolina, p. 20-21)
April 12 -- The first shots were fired at Fort Sumter. The Civil War had begun in Charleston Harbor.
May 31 -- The Tenth Regiment of South Carolina Volunteers gathered for the first time. Among them was Henry Michael Lofton. (Source: Home in the Village, p. 75)
Dec. 11 -- The largest, most destructive fire in Charleston's history began near Hasell and East Bay streets, swept west to Meeting Street, down to Broad Street, and all the way over to the Ashley River side of the peninsula, burning more than 540 acres, 575 homes, many businesses and five churches, including the Pinckney Mansion, S.C. Institute Hall, Circular Congregational Church, St. Andrew's Hall, and the Cathedral of St. John and St. Finbar. Property damage was estimated to be between $5 million and $8 million.
1862
Jan. 30 -- Henry Michael Lofton of the 10th Regiment, took time off from the Civil War to marry Susan Ann Morrison at Second Presbyterian Church. (Source: Home in the Village, p. 76)
1863
Jan. 1 -- Arthur Trezevant Wayne was born as his mother sought refuge from the war in Charleston.
July 10 -- From their base on Folly Beach, U.S. forces attacked Confederate positions in the southernmost part of Morris island, pushing as far north as Battery Wagner before they had to turn back. Though inconclusive, this attack marked the beginning of the 587-day Siege of Charleston, the longest siege operation of the war.
July 11 -- 1,200 Union soldiers stormed Battery Wagner. Though outnumbered, conditions were in the Confederates’ favor, and they turned back the Union attack with Confederate forces losing only 12 soldiers while 339 Union soldiers were killed, wounded, captured, or missing.
July 14 -- A writer forThe Mercury reported: "The battes at Gettysburg, like all that have succeeded the first Manassas, leaves the Yankee army undestroyed and nothing decided. Always there is some fatality, miscalculation or inadvertence, which closes us out of a complete victory." (Source: Seabrook Wilkinson in "The Way It Was 150 Years Ago: A disappointing lunch," Charleston Mercury, July 2013, p.16)
July 18 -- 650 members of the all-black (except for Col. Robert Gould Shaw) 54th Massachusetts Regiment attacked Battery Wagner on Morris Island in one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War.
Aug. 17 -- The 16,000-pound Swamp Angel is loaded onto a boat so taxed by its weight it periously floats just inches above the waterline. In the dark of a moonless night, Union soldiers successfully transport the gun to the Marsh Battery.
Aug. 22 -- Some time around 10:45 p.m., Union Maj. Gen. Quincy Gillmore sent a note to Confederate Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard demanding Charleston's immediate surrender or else at midnight he would commence firing from a floating battery recently built between James and Morris islands to hold the 12-ton canon known as the Swamp Angel.
Aug. 22 -- Not hearing back from Beauregard, Union Maj. Gen. Quincy Gillmore opens fire from Marsh Battery on the peninsula at 1:30 a.m. He gives Charlestonians the rest of this day and the next to evacuate the city.
Aug. 23 -- Union Maj. Gen. Quincy Gillmore began firing upon Charleston using the canon known as the Swamp Angel. When several shells misfire in the cannon, it begins to crack, exploding on its 36th shot.
Sept. 5 -- Confederate forces finally evacuated Battery Wagner and Battery Gregg..
1864
Feb. 17 -- The HL Hunley became the first submarine to successfully sink its target, the Housatonic. Though successfully completing their mission, the sub with its crew, never returned to shore and remained on the bottom of the ocean for the next 136 years.
July 1 -- The Union Army exploded a massive charge of dynamite placed in a tunnel that went under the Confederate lines at Petersburg, Va., killing a large contingent of South Carolina's 24th Regiment. John Marion Lofton, serving with the 23rd Regiment, was among the four Confederate units who responded to the blast, successfully staving off an attempt by 14 Union units to charge through the crater created by the blast. (Source: Home in the Village, p. 78)
July 27 -- The Charleston Mercury ardently defended Confederate Gen. Jubal Early's plans to utterly sack Northern towns in revenge for the damage done to Southern sites, saying "Let this comfort the tens of thousands of houseless Confederates whose homes have been destroyed by Yankee raiders." (Source: Stolen Charleston, p. 19-20)
July 30 -- Captain Henry Lofton of McClellanville was hospitalized at General Hospital #4 in Richmond, VA, for "chronic diarrhea and bebility." Disease was the deadliest enemy during the Civil War, accounting for twice as many deaths as wounds in battle, and diarrhea was the most prevalent of all. (Home in the Village, p. 78)
1865
Feb. 17 -- Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard called for all Confederate troops to evacuate the city, loading any useful things aboard the last train out of the Northeastern Railway's Wilmington Depot and destroying anything left that the enemy could use. As fires blazed across the peninsula, the city fell to Union troops.
Feb. 18 -- As the last train transporting Confederate soldiers and supplies pulled away, a horrible explosion at the Northeastern Railroad Depot killed more than 250 desperate men, women and children scavenging for whatever food and supplies they could find.
