How Charleston Celebrated Its Last July 4 Before the Civil War
As the South Carolina City Prepared to Break From the Union, Its People Swung Between Nostalgia and Rebellion
In the cooling evening air, Charleston, South Carolina’s notable citizens filed into Hibernian Hall on Meeting Street for the traditional banquet to close their July 4th festivities. The year was 1860, and the host, as always, was the ’76 Association, a society formed by elite Charlestonians in 1810 to pay homage to the Declaration of Independence.
The guest of honor was one of the city’s most beloved figures, William Porcher Miles, Charleston’s representative in the U.S. Congress in Washington. A former professor of mathematics at the College of Charleston, Miles …
