♪ [mortar fire booming] ♪ ♪ [musket fire popping] ♪ [mortar fire booming] ♪ [mortar fire booming] ♪ [mortar fire booming] ♪ [mortar fire booming] In 1776... Charleston, South Carolina... with Savannah and Georgia... were the two principal ports in the Southeast.

Some of the houses and buildings of the period still are standing.

As you see, Charleston already had become a gracious and beautiful seat of government for the colony and the state to be.

The defense of Fort Sullivan at the entrance to Charleston Harbor was one of the few bright spots for the American cause in the spring and early summer of 1776.

The expedition against Canada was a failure.

General Richard Montgomery had died before the walls of Quebec, Benedict Arnold was badly wounded, and most of the Kennebec column had been captured.

Guy Carleton, the British commander in Canada, had received reinforcements in May of 1776 and driven the remaining Americans south, almost in rout.

General William Thompson was defeated at Three Rivers on June 7th, and Canada was to remain permanently in British hands.

♪ Let us now go to Charleston.

♪ We are standing... on the reconstructed log and sand fort, Fort Sullivan, on Sullivan's Island.

♪ You must understand the geography of the South Carolina coastlands to appreciate the difficulty of 18th-century war in this area, amphibious or otherwise.

Charleston lies on a peninsula between the Ashley and the Cooper Rivers.

It thus can be cut off from support by land or sea, a fact which Sir Henry Clinton was to exploit in 1780.

But the harbor must be seized, and the land on both shores of the rivers contiguous to the city also must be seized.

In front of the city and all down the coast of South Carolina lie the Sea Islands, large and small, separated from the mainland by miles of salt marsh, intersected by numerous mud-bottom salt creeks, at low tide almost empty of water, practically impossible to cross by an army of men.

In my younger days, I had a boat run aground about a mile from Johns Island over here and waded in barefooted for help across the salt marshes.

I shall not forget that experience.

Two of these islands form a natural fortress for Charleston... Sullivan's Island where we stand right now, which stretches for about 4 miles on the northern side of the harbor, and Morris Island on the south.

The bank where the famous Fort Sumter was to be built at that time contained no fortifications, although there were batteries and installations at Fort Johnson on James Island commanding the southern approaches to the harbor.

Fort Sullivan-- later called Fort Moultrie-- was a square with a bastion at each angle, sufficiently large to contain, when finished, a thousand men.

It was built of palmetto logs, like this replica here, laid one upon the other on two parallel walls at 16 feet distance, bound together at intervals with timber... dovetailed and bolted, with the spaces between the two lines of logs being filled with sand.

The northeast curtain and the northwest curtain with bastions were unfinished, being logged up only about 7 feet high.

On the southeast bastion, the flagstaff was fixed, having a blue flag on which was set the motto "Liberty."

Three 18- and two 9-pounders and three English 18-pounders and two 9-pounders were mounted there on the southwest curtain.

Three 12-pounders and three 9-pounders were mounted on the northwest curtain.

Two cavaliers or épaulements, which are fieldworks, were thrown up with three 12-pounders mounted on each.

There were loopholes in the fort for riflemen.

The traverse behind the fort ordered by General Charles Lee never was completed, which meant that an English landing force could have taken the fort from the rear, or a frigate in an enfilading position out here in the channel could have made the fort untenable.

General Charles Lee called Fort Sullivan "a slaughter pen" and indefensible.

William Moultrie, its commander, said he could defend it, and that was that.

William Moultrie had courage and integrity.

Apparently, he also was careless and bone-lazy-- a strange fact-- and therefore just did not get around to fortifying the rear areas as Charles Lee had ordered.

General Charles Lee had arrived from the North, sent by Congress to take command in the southern theater.

His record in Europe as a soldier of fortune was impressive to say the least.

He'd fought with the Turks, commanded Cossacks, talked with Frederick the Great, and been aide-de-camp to the king of Poland.

He also had served in the Seven Years War in America and was adopted by the Mohawk Indians with the name "Boiling Water."

The Indians may have been more perceptive than Frederick the Great since boiling water produces hot air, and so, apparently, did Charles Lee, as his later dubious and somewhat bizarre career is to demonstrate.

At any rate, he arrived to take command in Charleston, and the population rejoiced to receive such a valuable military acquisition... although Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, commanding the batteries at Fort Johnson, said, "General Lee appears very clever, but is a strange animal."

Charles Lee had assumed command on June 8, 1776, without consulting President John Rutledge.

Sir Henry Clinton, the British field commander of the forces detached in 1776 by Sir William Howe-- the British commander in chief-- for operations in the southern theater, had planned originally to carry out combined operations with admiral Sir Peter Parker in the Chesapeake area.

Peter Parker, however, received intelligence that the American works on Sullivan's Island protecting the entrance into Charleston's harbor were still unfinished.

It could be taken by a coup de main, and Sullivan's Island held thereafter by a small British force supported by a frigate or two.

This would effectively seal Charleston Harbor to all larger shipping, although the smugglers could get in via the network of salt creeks on both sides of the city.

Apparently Henry Clinton had no expectations whatsoever of seizing the city of Charleston at that time.

With the number of troops he had under his command, this would have been impossible, or probably impossible.

Sullivan's Island, however, seized quickly, would prove for the British a very important acquisition and greatly facilitate any subsequent move against Charleston itself.

Actually, if Peter Parker had won the fort with the fleet and brought Charleston under his guns with the landing forces he had, the city might possibly have fallen to direct attack.

This, of course, is pure speculation.

On May 31, 1776, expresses from the North brought word to President John Rutledge that a large fleet of British ships had been sighted off Dewees Island, north of Charleston.

And on June 1st, Sir Peter Parker dropped anchor a few miles north of Charleston Harbor with 50 vessels, including transports carrying the troops.

President John Rutledge ordered out the militia to defend the city.

The alarm was fired, and the city, with its outworks, put in the best possible posture of defense.

The arrival of the British fleet and seaborne army off Charleston stopped in that city all the divisions pro and con independence.

The stores and warehouses were leveled along the waterfront, and batteries set up along East Bay.

The fortification of the harbor consisted of these batteries, flesh and bastions, beginning on the land just south of Cummings Point on the Ashley River, and extending along South Bay and East Bay to Gadsden's Wharf on the Cooper River, at the foot of the present Calhoun Street.

South Carolina defense forces numbered some 6 thousand 5 hundred and 22.

North Carolina had contributed 14 hundred.

There were 1 thousand 9 hundred and 50 South Carolina regiments, some 5 hundred Virginia Continentals, 7 hundred Charleston militia, and country militia numbering about 1 thousand 9 hundred and 72 The fort here... was garrisoned by the 2nd South Carolina Regiment of infantry with 413 men and a detachment of the 4th South Carolina Regiment's artillery with about 22 men.

These 435 were encamped inside the fort and formed part of the 6,522 total garrison of the city and its surrounding defenses.

Fort Johnson on James Island had 20 guns under Christopher Gadsden-- French 26- and 18-pounders-- commanding the channel approaches.

William Moultrie, always confident, had some 1200 men on Sullivan's Island, but only 10 thousand pounds of powder.

The northern end of Sullivan's Island across from Long Island-- the present Isle of Palms-- was held by Colonel William "Danger" Thompson with his 3rd South Carolina Regiment of rangers, including one company of Catawba Indian riflemen under a Captain Boyakin... the present name Boykin.

Altogether, 300 men.

Lieutenant Colonel Clark had 200 North Carolina Continentals, Colonel Daniel Horry was there with 200 South Carolina troops, and the Raccoon Company of 50 riflemen... about 780 men in all.

Captain de Brahm, a European military engineer, had erected, facing Breach Inlet, a breastwork of palmetto logs on the northeast corner of Sullivan's Island, with one 18-pounder and a brass 6-pounder field gun... not a very heavy battery force.

Charles Lee tried to put a bridge of empty hogsheads and boats with planks laid over them between Sullivan's Island and the battery at Haddrell's Point, but it sank under Clark's North Carolina troops, and these were forced to use boats, as were all subsequent troops thereafter.

The British force numbered about 2,200 British regulars, with Sir Henry Clinton and Lord Charles Cornwallis, supported by a fleet of two 50-gun ships of the line, five frigates, and four other vessels, mounting altogether 270 guns.

On the 7th of June, 1776, most of the transports and the lighter frigates got over the bar and a 5-fathom hole at the harbor's entrance, leaving Sir Peter Parker and the heavy units outside.

Sir Henry Clinton now decided to land his ground forces on Long Island, the Isle of Palms, although Peter Parker wished to put the troops ashore on Sullivan's Island at its northern end and take the forts by assault from the rear, which he probably could have done.

Remember that the fortifications never were completed on the fort's rear faces.

This decision to establish a beachhead on the Isle of Palms proved fatal to the entire operation.

Sir Henry Clinton apparently had been told that Breach Inlet was only 18 inches deep at low tide and, thus, easily wadeable.

Much to his surprise, he discovered that it ran, in holes, 7 feet at the ebb, and only 15 flat-bottomed boats were available for the troop landings.

It seems odd that Sir Henry Clinton, who did a two-night reconnaissance by small boat in the marshes and creeks behind the Isle of Palms and Sullivan's Island-- coming back, as he said, to his tent in the morning "wet and miry,"-- never checked Breach Inlet.

It was right there between the two islands, running full and deep at low tide.

Peter Parker, as I have said, wanted to land on Sullivan's Island, but Sir Henry Clinton refused this very intelligent concept of amphibious warfare because of the heavy surf and the fact that the shallow shelving beach prevented the British heavy warships from covering the landing with broadside fire.

A 32-pounder ship's gun had a skip range of about 3 miles, but an effective accurate range of under 500 yards.

Remember that your shot were kept in shot lockers.

The ships would be at sea for weeks and months, and the round shot would bounce and rust with the pitching of the ship until they came out all shapes and sizes.

The guns actually did not have a true bore and were not accurate in the modern sense of that word, and cannonballs fired could take a spin in any direction, which they might choose to do.

On the morning of 28th June, 1776, William Moultrie and William Thompson, riding together to inspect the troops and defenses on the northern end of Sullivan's Island, saw boats off Long Island.

And the warships at anchor off Long Island loosed their topsails moved down on the city.

Moultrie rode back to the fort and ordered the drums to beat the long roll and all men to their posts.

Between 10 and 11:00, the "Thunder"-- a bomb ship, a mortar ship, a British mortar ship with her mortars-- anchored at about a mile and a half out from the fort, out in here, to the left... [bombs whistling] covered by "Friendship," an armed vessel of some 22 guns, and began to throw shells, high trajectory fire.

Most of these were buried in the sand and exploded without doing any damage.

Firing at too long a range with too heavy charges, the mortars on "Thunder" ruptured the mortar beds, and the bomb ship "Thunder" was out of action for the rest of the operation.

The flood tide was strong, the wind fair from the southwest.

The "Active," 28 guns; "Bristol," 50 guns; "Experiment," 50 guns; and "Solebay," 28 guns, soon came within easy range of the fort, which opened fire from the southwest bastion.

The "Active," the British ship "Active," came within 400 yards of the fort and anchored, with springs on its cables for winding the ship into better firing positions, and delivered its broadsides at the fort... [bombs whistling] right out there.

You're looking at the battle right out there in front of us.

[bombs whistling] The "Bristol," the "Experiment," and "Solebay" anchored in line behind "Active" and delivered broadside fire.

The fort continued a slow, steady, aimed fire.

[bombs whistling] Just before the action began, a captain of a privateer named Lempriere had said to Colonel William Moultrie, "Well, Colonel, what do you think of it?

"When the British ships come to lay alongside your fort, they will knock it down in half an hour."

"Then," said William Moultrie, "we shall lie behind the ruins and prevent their men from landing."

[bombs whistling] The British fired 50 shots to each American 1.

Only 12 were killed in the fort.

Most of the shots buried in the palmetto logs... (tapping wood) or landed in the sand behind the fort.

The British losses were heavy.

"Bristol" of 50 guns, whose captain lost his arm and died later, had 44 killed and 30 wounded.

On the "Experiment" of 50 guns, the captain also lost his arm and 57 were killed with 30 wounded.

"Active" of 28 guns lost one officer, killed, and one man wounded.

"Solebay" of 28 guns had two killed and three or four wounded.

The "Acteon," a frigate, ran aground and was burned by its crew, with one man killed.

The guns in the fort here being silenced for lack of powder, the British thought the fort was abandoned.

Also, strangely, some clothing discarded in the heat by the American gunners was tossed into trees by plunging shot, and British lookouts at the mastheads announced that these were men hanging, hanged for desertion by Moultrie.

The fort survived, although three broadsides struck once at the same time, and the whole fort quivered under the impact.

The heat was intense.

After all, this is a South Carolina summer.

And grog-- that's water and rum-- was served around the guns and fire buckets.

William Moultrie said afterwards that he never had a more agreeable draft than that which he took out of one of these buckets.

The British also simultaneously attacked at Breach Inlet, supported by the armed schooner "Lady William" and a gunship, plus a flotilla of armed boats from the fleet with 3-pounders mounted in the bows.

The flotilla advanced bravely to attack, but Colonel William Thompson opened with his one 18-pounder and a little 6-pounder, plus the rifles of his rangers.

The Fighting Parson, Peter Muhlenberg, had joined William Thompson with 500 Virginians, and they swept the British decks as the British tried to cross.

As we've said, after 19 days on Long Island, Henry Clinton had not checked Breach Inlet at low tide.

His intelligence had told him it could be waded.

It could not, and the amphibious attempt which might have changed the battle failed.

The first American killed in the action was a corporal of grenadiers.

The rest of the men who belonged to his gun immediately threw him off the platform with their handspikes.

One McDonald, a sergeant in Captain Frank Huger's company, was mortally wounded, almost cut in half by a round shot.

According to the story, as they carried him away, he said, "I am killed, my brethren, but don't let liberty expire with me."

From my own battle experience in World War II, men mortally wounded don't say things like this... they go into shock.

But this was the 18th century, and possibly they did.

After the battle, Barnard Elliott reported, "My old grenadier sergeant Jasper, "from the shock, carrying away the flagstaff, "called out to Colonel Moultrie, "Colonel, don't let us fight without our flag!"

"What can you do"m replied the colonel, 'The staff is broke.'

"'Then,' said he, 'I'll fix it to a [audio missing] and place it on the merlon of the bastion next to the enemy.'"

Which he did, through the thickest fire.

President John Rutledge very properly presented Sergeant Jasper, after the battle, with this own sword.

And Jasper was killed later at Savannah in 1779, leading the assault with the 2nd South Carolina Regiment led by Francis Marion.

The fort here ran out of powder.

President Rutledge sent 500 pounds with a note predicting honor and victory.

"Do not make too free with your cannon.

Cool and do mischief."

Charles Lee came over from Charleston by boat, ascended the firing platform of the fort, and personally fired a gun.

He said, "You have no occasion for me here.

I'll go up to town again," which he did.

After the battle, a Mr.

William Logan of Charleston sent his compliments to Colonel Moultrie, to the officers and soldiers on Sullivan's Island, and begged their acceptance of a hogshead of old Antigua rum.

William Moultrie, the victor, reported laconically that Mr.

Logan's present was gratefully received.

Admiral Sir Peter Parker believed and stated later, the fleet fired on the fort at 450 yards or less.

He also admitted that that had been too great a range, a commentary on effective 18th-century gun range.

Sir Henry Clinton said the fleet anchored at 800 yards to 400 yards, and most of the shots went over the fort.

In 1780, when Henry Clinton captured Charleston, he had soundings made... right out here.

In the action, the pilots had refused to come closer because of shoal water.

This prevented short-range grapeshot from the deck guns from sweeping the embrasures here and musketry by the marines in the fighting top from being used effectively on the gunners.

These could have been deadly effective against exposed American personnel fighting from these gun platforms.

In Sir Henry Clinton's opinion, after sounding the area, Peter Parker could have brought his ships in much closer.

Sir Henry Clinton's comment was, "What say you now, Peter Parker?"

But after all, this was 1780, not '76.

Sir Henry Clinton subsequently blamed the failure of the whole attempt on the position taken by the larger ships and the three frigates assigned to attack troops at Haddrell's Point and swing in behind the fort in the creek to enfilade communications between the fort and mainland.

The three frigates ran aground on the shoal where Fort Sumter later was built.

Two were worked off, but one, the "Acteon," as I have said, was reported as lost and burned before being evacuated.

Charleston, however, was saved, and rested secure, in the minds of its citizens, behind its guns until 1780.

Sir Henry Clinton and Lord Cornwallis, supported by Admiral Mariot Arbuthnot's fleet, took the city then with very little difficulty.

General Charles Lee, William Moultrie, and William Thompson defended the city in 1776.

General Benjamin Lincoln commanded the defense forces in 1780.

I fear the difference is marked.

♪ ♪ >> This repulse... of the British-- of Sir Peter Parker and Sir Henry Clinton-- at Charleston here by the valiant defense of Fort Sullivan and Sullivan's Island, through the work of William Moultrie and William Thompson, Danger Thompson... the British now transferred... their major operations to the North, to the northern theater.

From 1776 until 1778... most of the big engagements-- all of the big, big engagements-- are in the north and central states, although a civil war continues here in the South between, of course, the Loyalists and the American Patriots.

In 1778, with the stalemate in the North-- the war had gone into a stalemate-- the British transferred again their major attention to the southern theater, to Savannah and Charleston, and Charleston was to fall... in 1780.

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