Union forces surrounding Charlestown Harbor in South Carolina continued their relentless bombardment of Confederate held, Fort Sumter. In three days, January 29 through the 31st, 1864 Union batteries fired a total of 583 artillery rounds at the now-battered but still defiant Fort Sumter.
However, as important as Fort Sumter was to the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis and the Confederate military establishment refused to surrender the fortification, even though its military importance was destroyed by the Union bombardment.
On Friday, January 29, 1864 the Confederates added a new ironclad, the CSS Charlestown, to their defenses in Charleston Harbor. The Charlestown, commanded by Commodore Isaac Brown, faithfully defended the city until it was eventually abandoned and destroyed when Charlestown finally fell to Union forces eleven months later in February 1865.