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It all started in Charleston, South Carolina, the soul of the Confederacy. Crush the soul and you weaken the spirit of all rebels. At least that is what the leaders of the Confederacy assumed was on the mind of Union General William T. Sherman in January of 1865. He had just completed his March to the Sea in Savannah, Georgia, and received Grant’s approval to turn east into South Carolina.
There were two possible immediate objectives for Sherman: Charleston, on the sea, and Columbia, the capital of South Carolina further away to the northeast. The rebel politicians in Richmond just knew Sherman would attack Charleston first, because he needed a base. Their generals knew better.
Sherman was fighting a “hard war” – forcing his army to live off the land. They took what they needed and destroyed whatever could be used to support the rebel cause. The hated Union general had just devastated Georgia without bases. The tactics of war had changed forever, but the politicians didn’t understand this.
Sherman wrote one of his generals that he felt it was too hazardous to storm the city. In fact, he proposed to General Ulysses S. Grant that he march on Columbia, and fool the rebels into thinking he might take Charleston to tie up soldiers that might confront him. He sent advance forces toward both cities to keep the Confederates guessing until the last minute.
Confederate General Robert E. Lee, who was about to become the south’s commander-in-chief, placed Lieutenant General Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard in charge of South Carolina’s meager army to defend both cities. All he could do was wait until Sherman’s plans were known and then concentrate the army in front of him.
At the beginning of the war between the confederacy of slave states and the United States, the thriving port city boasted 40,000 residents. Now, four years later, fewer than 10,000 called it home. The wealthy Southern aristocracy once stood on Battery rooftops and cheered as their own Fort Sumter was attacked and destroyed by rebellious warships. These wealthier citizens had raced inland years earlier to Columbia where they would be safe.
“The city was now deserted from the Battery to Calhoun Street,” remembered Pauline Dufort of Charleston at the time of the evacuation. She said the only residents staying in the lower section were the residents too poor to find safe shelter and those who pillaged the unoccupied homes. Pauline was the wife of resident Elias Dufort who was stationed in the city, and she remained with her husband throughout the evacuation.
The southern half of the peninsula withstood a two year long bombardment from the sea, and was now uninhabitable due to constant shelling. The inmates of Charleston’s orphanage were sent to live in an old arsenal building at Columbia to keep them out of harm’s way, and the mayor moved his office and most of the city’s records to the Orphan House, out of the reach of most shells.
A portion of the city burned in 1861 due to an accidental fire, and was not rebuilt by the end of the war. Most of the photos taken of the city’s devastation were actually the result of the fire, but northern photographers marketed the photos as the ultimate vision of war’s end result. Today the photos are often used by some southerners to oversell damage caused by the north.
The burned section was deep in southern Charleston, south of Baeufain and Hasell Streets. North of Calhoun Street was mostly unharmed, and a haven for residents searching for safety. It was in this area, the Wraggs and Hamstead Boroughs, where William and Lizzy Suder, James and Catherine Meyers, Elias and Pauline Dufort and Adolf Cramer still lived.
“Our home in Charleston being situated in the extreme northern section of the city, and consequently out of reach of shells, became a refuge for many,” wrote Dufort. Her story was recorded in the Charleston newspaper, The Weekly News and Courier, in a series named Our Women in the War. “Those occupying apartments in my house had been driven from their homes by the shells, and were remaining with me until they could find more comfortable shelter.”
Here the Citadel, the college, U.S. Arsenal and the orphanage made up the area’s major institutions surrounded by homes. And of course the train depots were here: The South Carolina Rail Road operated passenger and freight depots in the center of the peninsula, and the Northeastern Rail Road’s Wilmington Depot was to the east, along the Cooper River. The Savannah and Charleston Rail Road ended on James Island, just on the other side of the Ashley River to the west.
Between the two depots in Charleston, around Hanover and America Streets, most of the railroad workers and train engineers still lived with their families. On Hanover, William Henry and Elizabeth Suder lived with their two young sons while William engineered for the South Carolina Rail Road. North of these wards, the rebel army erected batteries to protect the city from a land attack. The city was defended by 14,000 rebel troops from different regiments, led by Lt. General William J. Hardee.
By February 2, Sherman’s entire 60,000-man army was across the Savannah River into South Carolina. It was decided that the Confederate military would evacuate Charleston, leaving it defenseless. Saving a garrison was more important than unsuccessfully protecting a city. Even if Sherman bypassed the Charleston, the rebel soldiers would be cut off if they stayed and unable to escape to join forces later.
Kershaw’s Brigade under the Confederate General Kennedy was driven from the Salkehatchie River on February 8, and returned to Charleston on the Savannah and Charleston line. The brigade helped destroy what the army couldn’t take with them, including hundreds of barrels of whiskey. Two days later on Saturday, February 10, an advanced Union regiment attacked Confederate rifle pits on James Island, across the river from Charleston. It appeared as though Sherman’s army was closing in on Charleston.
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