Post Office on East Bay Street II

Yes, this is the Post Office at 122 East Bay Street, but this image, made in April 1865, shows more. The wagons are now loaded with wooden barrels from the business of J. E. Adger & Co. South Carolina is known as the Palmetto State, but palmetto trees are hard to grow in a city. This is one of the few palmetto trees seen in Charleston photographs taken during the Federal occupation. That doesn’t mean that the citizenry didn’t try. As the symbol of South Carolina’s independence after secession, a lot of palmettos were planted in Charleston at the time, but when this photograph was taken—maybe the third week of April 1865—evidently few had survived.

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.