Daniel Heyward’s Mansion, Collapsed

During the time that a Northern photographer stayed in occupied Charleston in early 1865, the stone walls of the mansion, whose interior had been burned out by a shell- started fire, gave way and fell. Next door, looking west, the next residence was that of Charles Alston, prominent coastal rice planter. During the occupation it became the residence of Union Brig. Gen. Rufus Saxton, the Massachusetts-born officer who had formed the 1st South Carolina Regiment (Colored) around Beaufort, S.C., in 1862. During the rest of the war he worked to bring ex-slaves as soldiers into the Union army. The Library of Congress attributes this photograph to George N. Barnard.

This is the caption as printed in 100 Significant Civil War Photographs: Charleston in the War. It has not yet been through this site’s research and fact-checking pass.