Civil War Charleston Harbor Sunken Bullion

Charleston endured the longest sustained campaign of the Civil War. Blockade runners carried gold and supplies through Fort Sumter's gauntlet; sinkings and Union capture left payroll specie unaccounted. George Trenholm's Fraser & Company and harbor fortifications moved vast wealth; folklore adds strongboxes buried along the Battery and James Island before Sherman's march threatened the coast. Harbor dredging and metal detecting occasionally recover Civil War coins, sustaining legends of larger submerged caches near Morris Island and the harbor channel.