1863 – Bombardment of Charleston. 1:30 a.m.

Swamp Angel, the Federal gun that fired upon Charleston.

A Federal shell burst just north of the City Market at the corner of Pinckney and Church Streets. It was a 200-pounder shot from the “Swamp Angel.” British war correspondent and illustrator, Frank Vizetelly, was staying at the Charleston Hotel on Meeting Street. Unable to sleep, he was in his room reading Les Miserables when he was:

startled by a noise that …resembled the whirr of a phantom brigade of cavalry galloping in mid-air. My first feeling was that of utter astonishment; but a crash, succeeded by a deafening explosion in the very Street on my apartment was situate, brought me with a bound to the centre of the room … At first I thought a meteor had fallen, but another rush and whirr right over the hotel, and another explosion, settled any doubts I might have had: the city was being shelled.

I will defy anyone who witnessed what I witnessed on leaving my room, not to have given way to mirth … terrified gentlemen rushing about in the scantiest of costumes …One perspiring individual of portly dimensions was trotting to and fro with one boot on and the other in his hand and this was nearly all the dress he could boast …

Frank Vizetelly’s illustration of the first shot

Capt. Charles C. Pinckney, an ordinance officer stationed in Charleston under General Roswell S. Ripley, wrote:

I rode down Smith Street about 2 o’clock A.M. The streets were entirely deserted, yet every house was lighted up. What does it mean?  Have the Yankees slipped in and taken the town while I was asleep? I urged the horse, & reached Headquarters. Without notice, a city full of sleeping women & children – a bombardment without military significance  … was clearly & purely spite!

Miss Pauline Heyward wrote in her diary:

Father went to Charleston on Sunday, and returned today, the Yankees are shelling the City … One shell went thro the roof of a house and straight thro the first floor … and thro the brick wall … into the yard that was paved, and there buried itself six feet into the earth.

Confederate Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard wrote Union Gen. Gillman, accusing the Union officer:

you now resort to the novel measure of turning your guns on the old men, the women and children, and the hospitals of a sleeping city, an act of inexcusable barbarity … if you fire again on this city … without granting a somewhat more reasonable time to remove non-combatants, I shall feel compelled to employ such stringent means of retaliation as my available …

 During the night a free “Negro” fire company extinguished the first fire from the bombardment.

AUGUST 19

1776 – American Revolution – Continental Congress.  

Edward Rutledge wrote that the states would not approve the Articles of Confederation “as they stand now.” The southern delegations opposed the provision that each state should contribute financially in proportion to their population, including slaves.

In an argument which was to continue for the next ninety years, Southern delegates argued that slaves were wealth-producing property, not people. Thomas Lynch, Jr. of South Carolina said that if the North wanted to debate whether slaves were property “there is an End of the Confederation.”

Edward Rutledge argued it was “unfair to base taxes on one form of wealth-producing property and not others, such as land and livestock.” He also wrote:

I propose that the States should appoint a special Congress to be composed of new Members for this purpose – and that no Person should disclose any part of the present plan.

AUGUST 18

1772 

Henry Laurens wrote his daughter, Martha, from Philadelphia, as he was preparing to leave for England.

My dearest Patsy, remember my precepts; be dutiful, kind and good to your Aunt … let all your reading, your study, and your practice tend to make you a wise and virtuous woman, rather than a fine lady; the former character always comprehends the latter, but the modern fine lady … is too often found to be deficient both in wisdom and in virtue.

 1775 – American Revolution – Slavery.

Thomas Jeremy, a free black man, was hanged at the workhouse green on Magazine Street, next to the Jail. Known as “Jerry the pilot” he was convicted of conspiring to foment a slave insurrection. His body was taken down and burned.

Jeremy, worth £1000 sterling and a slave owner himself, had supposedly claimed that if British warships came, he would pilot them across the Charlestown bar himself. Lord William Campbell, Carolina Royal Governor, became convinced that Jeremy was innocent. He believed that the swirling emotions of rebellion, fueled by the massacre at Lexington and Concord, created an atmosphere in which Jeremy was an unwitting victim. The day after Jeremy’s execution Campbell wrote, “I could not save him My Lord!”