Legacy of a Fire

Exactly one year later, on Feb. 17, 1865, Confederates in Fort Sumter lowered their flag for the last time. Union troops were closing in, and Southern troops evacuated the city. Federals marched in the next day. A quarter-century later, Charlestonian John Johnson wrote, “it will be only a degenerate race in future years that will let it be forgotten.” He was referring to Confederates’ raising of the two Keokuk guns. But he might as well have been writing about Charlestonians’ heroic defiance and defense of their city throughout the Civil War.24 With his camera tripod standing on the roof of the Mills House, the photographer looks north across the intersection of King and Queen Streets into the middle of the Burnt District. Far left is the Unitarian Church, which had been renovated in 1854 with construction of a Gothic tower. Next to it is St. John’s Lutheran, dedicated on June 24, 1764—St. John’s Day. But from St. John’s to the right, along the south side of Queen, are ruined storefronts, destroyed in the Great Fire of December 1861.

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.