exchanged. Only the prisoners that could walk on their own were accepted. As he had only been imprisoned a few months, he had not yet been reduced to a state of malnutrition and even imbecility like thousands of others who had been there longer. They were taken to Charleston and herded into the old Washington Race Course at the head of King’s Street, about three miles from the downtown waterfront. Instead of being exchanged, however, they were sent to Florence, South Carolina, 150 miles from Charleston, where another stockade was being built and where conditions would get as deplorable as Andersonville. When they reached the town by rail cars, the stockade was not yet completed and the prisoners were kept under a strong guard. During the night, Kirby made his escape under the cover of darkness and headed back to Charleston on foot, bare-headed and bare-footed.
Using the stars to guide him, he travelled at night, avoiding the highways and supplying himself with provisions by begging and foraging. He made it back to Charleston, where he begged for food and clothing from a family that was either friendly to the Union cause, or too kindhearted to turn him over to the Confederate authorities. He confessed to them that he was an escaped Yankee prisoner, but they kept his secret. The only clothes Kirby had on when he arrived at their doorstep were rotten meal sacks, and even those were scant. The family gave him clothes and food
and hid him in their home until they could arrange for him to be stowed away in the coal bunker of the blockade runner Celt, which was scheduled to depart Charleston in the coming days. Celt’s owner had taken out a bond for a large cargo of cotton. Set up to run the blockade, she was fully loaded and ready to sail in September 1864 when she was suddenly pressed into military service in Charleston for use as a troop transport. Consequently, Celt was not able to attempt the blockade run until February, when she set out for Nassau in the Bahamas after an
(below) US Coast Survey Map of Charleston, 1865, prepared by direction of Rear Admiral J. A. Dahlgren, USN. Map shows “positions of obstructions & torpedoes from information furnished by persons who removed them.” (right) Inset showing the location of the Celt wreck site close to shore off Fort Moultrie.
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order to evacuate the city. Stowaway Kirby intended to apply to the American consul in Nassau for passage to New York, but before the Celt was able to clear the harbor, she was fired upon and ran aground on the east side of Bowman’s Jetty near Fort Moultrie on the evening of 14 February 1865. An armed tug, USS Laburnum, on picket duty in the harbor, hailed a boat coming from Sullivan’s Island at 2am, and took aboard seven men who reported themselves to be from the blockade runner Sylph. The following is the report from the captain of the Laburnum:
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US Tug Laburnum, Off Charleston, February 15, 1865. Sir: I have the honor to make the following report: At 2 o’clock this morning, while doing picket duty on the advance, discovered a boat coming from Sullivan’s Island with 7 men in her. Hailed her and took them on board. They report themselves from the blockade SEA HISTORY 166, SPRING 2019