thumb|300px|Fort Sullivan on June 28, 1776

thumb|[[Moultrie Flag|Fort Moultrie flag]]

thumb|200px|Confederate Fort Moultrie on Sullivan's Island looking east into Charleston Harbor

200px|right|thumb|Fort Moultrie Visitor Center

[[File:Entry into Fort Moultrie, SC IMG 4546.JPG|200px|right|thumb|Entrance to Fort

Moultrie]]

200px|right|thumb|Cannon displayed at Fort Moultrie

Fort Moultrie is a series of fortifications on Sullivan's Island, South Carolina, built to protect the city of Charleston, South Carolina. The first fort, formerly named Fort Sullivan, built of palmetto logs, inspired the flag and nickname of South Carolina, as "The Palmetto State". The fort was renamed for the U.S. patriot commander in the Battle of Sullivan's Island, General William Moultrie. During British occupation, in 1780–1782, the fort was known as Fort Arbuthnot.

History

American Revolution

Col. Moultrie took command of Sullivan's Island on March 2, 1776, which included a garrison of 413 men of the 2nd South Carolina Regiment of Infantry and 22 men of the 4th South Carolina Regiment, artillery. The island included a fort, still under construction at the southern tip, which was being supervised by Capt. De Brahm. The square design, with corner bastions, was supposed to have parallel rows of palmetto logs , filled in with . However, by June 28, only the front (the southeast and southeast curtain walls and bastions) was complete. The northern portion of the fort was unfinished, standing at only . Cavaliers were constructed along the rear walls. The blue flag on the southeast bastion had the word "Liberty" on it. A total of 31 guns commanded the approach from Five Fathom Hole offshore, past the island and the Middle Ground shoal, before ships could enter the harbor.

South Carolina patriots began to build a fort to guard Charleston, South Carolina, harbor in 1776. Royal Navy Admiral Sir Peter Parker led a fleet of nine warships in an attack against the fort—known as Fort Sullivan and incomplete—on June 28, 1776, near the beginning of the American Revolutionary War. The soft palmetto logs did not crack under bombardment but rather absorbed the shot; cannonballs reportedly even bounced off the walls of the structure. William Moultrie, commander of the 2nd South Carolina Regiment, and his four hundred men fought a day-long battle that ended with Parker's heavily damaged fleet being driven from the area. The fort hence took its name, as Fort Moultrie, in his honor. Charleston locals celebrate "Carolina Day" to commemorate the bravery of the defenders of the fort.

During this battle, Moultrie flew a flag of his own design, authorized by the colonial government. It was later called the Moultrie flag, or Liberty flag, and became iconic to the Revolution in the South.

The British eventually captured Fort Moultrie, as part of the Siege of Charleston in spring 1780, and renamed it as Fort Arbuthnot. The fort was garrisoned by Captain Jonathan Robeson's company of the Regiment of Artillerists in 1802. However, after years of neglect, the Antigua–Charleston hurricane destroyed Fort Moultrie in 1804.

Fort Moultrie was rebuilt as part of the Second System of fortifications in 1808–09, under the direction of Army engineer Alexander Macomb. A report by the Secretary of War, on fortifications in December 1811, describes Fort Moultrie as:

: "an irregular form, built of brick, presenting a battery of three sides on the sea front, and the whole is enclosed with ramparts, parapets, &c. mounting 40 guns. … The barracks are of brick … for five hundred (soldiers)".

Fort Moultrie's main design did not change much over the next five decades. The Army altered the parapet and modernized the armament, but defense of Charleston centered increasingly around newly created Fort Sumter. By the time of the American Civil War, Fort Moultrie, Fort Sumter, Fort Johnson, and Castle Pinckney surrounded and defended Charleston.

Fort Moultrie began to record meteorological observations in the early 1820s.

For fifty years the Army detained Native American prisoners at Fort Moultrie. Seminole Indian fighter Osceola and some fellow Seminoles were captured in late 1837 and transferred to the fort. Osceola died of malaria in January 1838; the Army buried his corpse at the front gate of Fort Moultrie and thereafter maintained his grave.

Civil War

In the months leading up to the Civil War, John L. Gardner was in command at Fort Moultrie. With secession growing more imminent, Gardner had made several requests to Secretary of War John B. Floyd for more troops to garrison and defend the undermanned fortress. Each time his requests were ignored, as Floyd, who joined the Confederacy, was planning to hand the forts in Charleston Harbor over to the secessionists.

South Carolina seceded from the Union on December 20, 1860, after the first election of President Abraham Lincoln. Around this time a Federal garrison from the 1st US Artillery was sent to Fort Moultrie. Unlike the state militia at the other forts, the U.S. Regular Army defenders of Fort Moultrie chose not to surrender to the South Carolina forces. On December 26, 1860, Union Major Robert Anderson moved his garrison from Fort Moultrie to the stronger Fort Sumter. On February 8, 1861, South Carolina joined the five other seceded Deep Southern states to form the Confederate States of America. In April 1861, Confederate troops shelled Fort Sumter into submission, and the American Civil War began.

In April 1863, Federal ironclads and shore batteries began a bombardment of Fort Moultrie and the other forts around Charleston harbor. Over the ensuing twenty months, Union bombardment reduced Fort Sumter to a rubble pile and pounded Fort Moultrie below a sand hill, which protected it against further bombardment. The rifled cannon proved its superiority to brickwork fortifications but not to the endurance of the Confederate artillerymen who continued to man Fort Moultrie. In February 1865, as General Sherman marched through South Carolina, the Confederate soldiers finally abandoned the rubble of Fort Moultrie and evacuated the city of Charleston.

Postbellum period and 20th century

The U.S. Army modernized Fort Moultrie in the 1870s with new weapons and deep concrete bunkers. Weapons of this period included 15-inch and 10-inch Rodman guns (), which were smoothbores, and 8-inch converted rifles, lined down from 10-inch Rodmans.

Beginning in 1897, Fort Moultrie's armament was modernized under the large-scale Endicott Program of coast defenses. Eight new reinforced-concrete batteries were completed by 1906, and part of the Second System fort was demolished to make room for batteries Bingham, McCorkle, and Lord. The fort also had a mine casemate to control a naval minefield.

The Endicott Program batteries at Fort Moultrie were: In 1901 Battery McCorkle was added to defend the minefield against minesweepers with three 3-inch guns on retractable masking parapet carriages. In 1905 Battery Lord was added with two 3-inch guns, and in 1906 Battery Gadsden provided four 6-inch rapid-fire disappearing guns.

Battery Capron was named for Captain Allyn K. Capron of the 1st US Volunteer Cavalry, the famous "Rough Riders", who was the first US Army officer killed in the Spanish–American War. Battery Butler was named for Colonel Pierce M. Butler of the Palmetto Regiment, killed in the Battle of Churubusco in the 1847 Mexican–American War. Battery Jasper was named for Sergeant William Jasper of the 2nd South Carolina Regiment, a hero of the 1776 attack on the fort. Battery Thomson was named for Colonel William Thomson of the 3rd South Carolina Regiment, commended for defending Charleston in June 1776. Battery Gadsden was named for Brigadier General Christopher Gadsden, a South Carolina officer of the Revolutionary War. Battery Logan was named for Captain William Logan, killed fighting the Nez Perce in 1877. Battery Bingham was named for 2nd Lieutenant Horatio Bingham, killed fighting the Sioux in 1866. Battery McCorkle was named for 1st Lieutenant Henry McCorkle of the 25th US Infantry Regiment, killed in the Battle of El Caney in the Spanish–American War. Battery Lord was named for Assistant Surgeon George Edwin Lord, killed at the Battle of the Little Big Horn, also called "Custer's Last Stand", in 1876.

Two of Battery Jasper's four 10-inch guns were similarly removed in 1918 for potential use as railway guns; they were never returned to the fort but were replaced with guns from Fort Washington in 1919. The Marshall Military Reservation, a sub-post of Fort Moultrie, was established in the northeast part of Sullivan's Island to accommodate the new batteries. The batteries built during World War II at and near Fort Moultrie were:

thumb|right|200px|12-inch [[casemated gun, similar to those of BCN 520]]

The construction of the long-range BCN 520 with 12-inch guns rendered all previous gun defenses in the Charleston area obsolete. BCN 520 was armed with guns removed from Battery Kimble at Fort Travis, Galveston, Texas.

In 1960, the Department of Defense transferred Fort Moultrie to the National Park Service. NPS manages the historic fort as a unit of Fort Sumter and Fort Moultrie National Historical Park. NPS has interpreted the fort as a tour backward in time from its defenses from World War II to the original palmetto log fort constructed by William Moultrie. The preserved Harbor Entrance Control Post and BCN 520 (now a private residence) are the main relics of the World War II era.

The National Register of Historic Places listed Fort Moultrie Quartermaster and Support Facilities Historic District on September 6, 2007. In 2016, the America the Beautiful quarter for South Carolina featured Fort Moultrie.

In 1999, the construction of a tall private home next to the fort that blocked the sightline to Fort Sumter led to a successful campaign to eliminate the problem. The American Battlefield Trust, then known as the Civil War Preservation Trust, was assisted by the National Park Service, the Trust for Public Land, and a consortium of local residents in buying the plot from the landowner and removing the building.

Moultrie is honored with his statue in The Battery section of downtown Charleston.

See also

  • 13th Coast Artillery (United States)

Bibliography

  • , Book (<small>par view</small>)
  • , E'book
  • , E'book
  • , E'book

References

  • Fort Moultrie
  • Historic Charleston's Religious and Community Buildings, a National Park Service Discover Our Shared Heritage Travel Itinerary
  • Fort Moultrie at USForting.com