This is Fort Moultrie. Fort Moultrie was named for General William Moultrie. General William Moultrie
won a significant battle during the American Revolution at this site. Rather than tell you
this story myself. I'm gonna let Jim Muir a park service volunteer tell you about the history of
Fort Moultrie during the American Revolution. In lieu of the map inside, this is the map that shows
the city of Charleston, Sullivan's Island and the various channel entrances. All of which are very
dicey, except for this one, and so that's why they built Fort Moultrie where it is. In January of 1776,
the mayor of Charleston, who was also the governor of the state,
told the governor, the King appointed governor, he was invited on the next ship out of town,
and so the city of Charleston in effect seceded from Great Britain in 1776. They figured he'd be
back, and so they started building the fort, on that was called the Fort on Sullivan's Island.
Because if we're lucky, we'll see a container ship come by, and it'll be about 200 yards
from where I'm standing, and you'll be able to count the containers. So it's pretty interesting.
And the fort, we have a model inside, but now I have to do a picture.
This is what the fort looked like with palmetto logs and sand in between the palmetto logs.
And it wasn't finished in in June of 1776, when the when the Governor Campbell came back on a
a flotilla of 50 ships, 12 of which were men of war with
75 pound cannons. The British had 270 cannons, the patriots of the Fort on Sullivan's Island had 31.
And they were 18 pounders and 25 pounders that were left over from the French and Indian War.
The attack started about 10 o'clock in the morning, and went all day.
Three of the nine ships attempted to go around.
The ships were here and three of them attempted to go around,
and fire on from the rear or into the rear,
and they ran aground.
The British got two of them loose, but the third one they didn't get loose.
So when the the pennant went up to to sail away, the two ships joined the the the other
11. But this one was left, and the patriots rode out, and actually fired the cannon
on the retreating British. So that was June 26 1776, and that is celebrated as Carolina Day
in the state for a number of years. We're about to celebrate the 250th
Carolina Day of the anniversary of Carolina Day. And the state has already commissioned,
a commission to make sure that everybody in the United States realizes that there are more
Revolutionary War Battles fought in South Carolina than any other state. And it's by far a number,
a greater number, and the reason it's a greater number is because the same general, General Clinton
who was here with the original 1776 guys came back in 1780, and he went to Savannah
because the British controlled Savannah, and he unloaded there. And this time it was a hundred ship
fleet, and on the way down from New York a lot of those ships got damaged, but a good number of them
arrived, and he began the the march to take Charleston. There were several battles along
the way, Battle of Savannah. But he came up, and he actually layed siege to Charleston.
Lots of goings on back and forth, lots of discussion between the town the city members and
the general. Because the general had the ability to abandon Charleston and move all the troops
through the waterways and escape. He was persuaded not to do that and he eventually surrendered.
Now in those days, the protocol for surrendering, if you had a gallant defense, you would be allowed to
come out of your fortification flying your flag, and your drummers would play the tune
of choice of the victorious army. They were denied that. The Continentals of there were over
1500 continental soldiers, were made prisoners. The militia and there were far more militia
than the continentals, swore an oath to the King and they were allowed to go home. They were given
parole. The general who was here, Clinton was succeeded by his number two
in command General Lord Cornwallis and Clinton went back to New York. Cornwallis was in charge.
The rules that Clinton left for Cornwallis to impose caused all of the patriots, who
had sworn allegiance to the King to become guerrillas, because the British
stole their cattle, burned their houses, were generally not very good occupiers. And so after
the siege of Charleston, after the surrender of Charleston in 1780, more than 35 guerrilla
battles were fought in South Carolina. Most of them in the back country which is above Colombia.
And General Gates came down. He was the hero of Saratoga was soundly defeated at Candom.
General Nathaniel Greene took over and he split his forces and had Cornwallis chasing him.
He got, Cornwallis lost at Cow Pens. Cornwallis lost at King's Mountain. Cornwallis won at Guilford
Courthouse, but in had horrible casualties, and Cornwallis followed Green into North Carolina,
into Virginia, to Yorktown. And at Yorktown aided by the French fleet, who had not been aided who
who abandoned Savannah a little bit before, and the French army. Cornwallis surrendered. So the next day,
they asked for the protocol of a gallant defense and it was denied. Cornwallis suddenly got sick.
So he sent his second in command, to surrender his sword to Washington.
He approached Washington and I'm I'm I'm sort of dramatizing this, but Washington said no no.
You're the second in command, you surrender to my second in command, and his second in command was
General Lincoln. In the book where I learned this story, and thus was Charleston avenged
and that was the end of the book. And the author of the book, and the book is A Gallant
Defense and it's just about the defense of Charleston. It's a great book and the
author is the head of the Charleston Museum. So all right so I digress. So we we win the war,
The original Fort Moultrie which is the Fort Moultrie with the palmetto logs is
washed away by a hurricane. A second Fort Moultrie is washed away by a hurricane. Jim told us that
General Moultrie was buried across the street from the fort. So after our visit to Fort Moultrie,
we went to see the grave of the general who defeated the British here at Fort Moultrie.