Tim Murphy
- Aug 18
- 13 min read

Fort Moultrie

Between 1776 and 1947, Fort Moultrie served as the guardian of Charleston Harbor. The defensive work endured a baptism by fire during the Battle of Sullivan’s Island, where Patriot militia successfully fended off the predominant British Navy—an emboldened victory that helped legitimize the American Revolution.

Fort Moultrie is located on the southwestern tip of Sullivan’s Island, which is named after Captain Florence O’Sullivan, one of South Carolina’s first settlers and a Deputy to the Lords Proprietors. This was a most strategic and defensible position—given the contemporary hydrographic features of the Charleston Harbor estuary—since ships had to navigate alongside Sullivan’s shores to avoid hazardous shoals. Beyond military defense, Sullivan’s Island was utilized as a quarantine station for African slaves afflicted by the extreme conditions of human bondage. Between 1707 and 1799, Sullivan’s Island received and processed nearly half of North America’s captive Africans.

The Battle of Sullivan’s Island – June 28, 1776

In 1775, embittered Anglo-American relations reached a critical juncture. Years of punitive legislation and repressive economic sanctions amplified revolutionary rhetoric among the American populace, directly challenging Britain’s governmental powers. This tumultuous powder keg of sociopolitical discontent erupted at the Battles of Lexington and Concord—the proverbial “Shot Heard ‘Round the World”—where Patriot forces secured an astonishing victory over beleaguered British troops, effectuating the Siege of Boston. The subsequent Battle of Bunker Hill, a pyrrhic victory for the Redcoats, further underscored the rebellion’s volatility and signaled to British authorities the impracticality of New England’s immediate reclamation.

Britain’s strategy of suppression turned towards the southern colonies, where Loyalist (Tory) sympathies were supposedly strong. According to Josiah Martin and Sir William Campbell—the deposed Royal Governors of North and South Carolina, respectively—the fires of independence could be easily extinguished with the assistance of British regulars. Encouraged by these optimistic reports, Major General Sir William Howe, the British Commander-in-Chief of North America, directed his second-in-command, Major General Henry Clinton, to organize an auspicious Southern Expedition that would “restore the authority of the King’s government in the four southern provinces.”

On January 20, 1776, General Clinton departed Boston Harbor with fifteen hundred enlisted men, intending to rendezvous with Commodore Sir Peter Parker—whose squadron carried seven additional regiments under Lord General Charles Cornwallis—along North Carolina’s Cape Fear River. Clinton expected the Royal Navy to arrive around mid-March; however, logistical complications and violent storms delayed Parker’s deployment by nearly two months.

While awaiting Parker’s arrival, Clinton received troubling news from the North Carolina interior. On February 27, Loyalist forces under Brigadier General Donald MacDonald suffered a devastating defeat at the Battle of Moore’s Creek Bridge—nearly nine hundred Tory sympathizers were killed, wounded, or captured during the three-minute melee with Colonel Richard Caswell’s Patriot militia, who sustained only two total casualties. This untimely loss forced Clinton to rethink his campaign strategy. After conferring with Commodore Parker, Clinton endeavored to capture Charleston, South Carolina—the largest port city in the southern colonies.

Since early 1776, Patriot leaders had anticipated the spread of British militance into South Carolina. Accordingly, under the direction of John Rutledge—a Continental Congressman and President of the South Carolina General Assembly—colonists arrayed “a vigorous defense” of Charleston Harbor and its environs. The 2nd South Carolina Infantry, commanded by Colonel William Moultrie, garrisoned Sullivan’s Island inside an unfinished palmetto-log fortress.

The British fleet appeared off the South Carolina coast on June 1, 1776. After surveying Charleston's defenses, the Redcoats devised a bipartite battle strategy: Clinton's infantry would conduct an amphibious landing on Long Island (modern-day Isle of Palms) and flank Moultrie's rear while Parker's naval forces simultaneously bombarded the untested beachfront fortress. On June 8, British warships proceeded to cross Charleston Bar—a series of submerged sand banks eight miles southeast of the city. However, Parker’s inexperienced pilots had tremendous difficulty maneuvering through the hazardous shallows without reputable estuary charts and navigation aids. British sailors spent precious time taking bathymetric measurements and replacing vandalized nautical markers while Clinton’s 2,200 infantrymen landed unopposed on Long Island.

As the Redcoats converged on Charleston, Major General Charles Lee—an eccentric former British officer who commanded the Continental Army’s Southern Department—entered the city with two thousand American soldiers. Three North Carolina regiments under Brigadier General John Armstrong (approximately 1,400 men) followed close behind. Lee hastily inspected Patriot installations around the harbor and found particular mediocrity on Sullivan’s Island. The palmetto fort was still incomplete along its northern façade and lacked any direct means of retreat. Lee chastised the defensive structure as a “slaughter pen” and demanded its immediate abandonment. However, President Rutledge disagreed with Lee’s directive, instructing Moultrie “not [to evacuate] the fort without an order from me. I would sooner cut off my right hand than write one.” This circumvention placed Moultrie at odds with Lee, a strict disciplinarian who was already troubled by the colonel’s lax command style. Frustrated, Lee sought to replace Moultrie with Colonel Francis Nash by the end of June.

On June 17, British regulars mobilized towards Sullivan’s Island, intending to march across a partially-submerged sandbar known as Breach Inlet. Though initially estimated to be eighteen inches underwater during low tide, the channel’s true depth measured nearly seven feet—much too deep to wade across and too shallow for man-of-war transportation. General Clinton spent the next several days reconnoitering the surrounding landscape, but the tidal swamps and marshlands proved impenetrable. While the British idled, General Lee hurried eight hundred troops under Colonel William Thomson to the northside of Sullivan’s Island, which made Clinton’s anticipated crossing all the more daunting.

The combined British offensive commenced on the morning of June 28. British infantry attempted to deploy across Breach Inlet using flatboats, but the tactic was quickly abandoned due to disruptive fire from Thomson’s entrenched troops. Despite Clinton’s inability to invade Sullivan’s Island, Commodore Parker was confident that a ferocious naval bombardment would compel the Americans to surrender. Cannonades began at 11:30 am, when the bomb ketch Thunder launched mortar rounds into the Patriot stronghold. One shell struck the fort’s magazine, but failed to detonate. Additional warships joined the barrage with thunderous broadsides, but the fort’s spongy palmetto walls—sixteen-feet-thick and filled with sand—absorbed or deflected each hit. One British projectile snapped the fort’s flagstaff and brought down the garrison’s colors—a blue ensign with a white crescent moon in its upper left corner emblazoned with the word “LIBERTY.” Acting with instinctive bravery, Sergeant William Jasper jumped over the bastion, retrieved the flag, and replanted it upon the parapet, all while being exposed to enemy fire.

After an hour of ineffective shelling, Parker ordered his second line of ships—Actaeon, Sphinx, and Syren—to swing around Sullivan’s southern headland and enfilade the fort against its unfinished portions. Unfortunately, British pilots stranded their vessels against the Lower Middle Ground—a shoal that later developed into Fort Sumter. The Sphinx and Syren were eventually freed, but Actaeon remained stuck in the sand.

While the British bungled their assault, Moultrie’s garrison faced a mounting gunpowder shortage. Patriot defenders prepared to evacuate Sullivan’s Island as artillery charges neared critical lows. The dire situation was conveyed to President Rutledge, who promptly delivered five hundred pounds of gunpowder to the embattled palmetto fort. Upon doing so, Rutledge cautioned Colonel Moultrie, "Do not make too free with your cannon. Cool and do mischief.” Generously resupplied, Moultrie instructed his artillerists to concentrate their fire around frigates closest to shore and wait ten minutes between each round.

American gunners took deliberate aim, striking British warships with regular frequency. The Royal Navy’s two largest vessels—the HMS Experiment and flagship HMS Bristol—sustained the most damage from Moultrie’s guns. Around seventy shots struck Bristol, destroying many of her riggings and masts. John Morris, the flagship’s captain, and 39 other crew members were killed, along with 71 wounded, including Commodore Parker, who “suffered the indignity of having the hind part of his breeches shot away, laying bare his backsides.” William Campbell, the former Royal Governor of South Carolina who volunteered to fight on Bristol’s quarterdeck, took a splinter to his left side, a wound that ultimately contributed to his death two years later. Captain Alexander Scott of Experiment lost an arm and 78 crew members (23 killed and 55 wounded).

Over the course of battle, Parker’s armada fired seven thousand rounds and burned more than twelve tons of gunpowder—compared to 960 projectiles and 4,800 pounds for the Patriots—yet sustained an overwhelming share of damage. “We are in a shattered condition,” an officer wrote. “No slaughterhouse could present so bad a sight, with blood and entrails lying about, as our ships did.” Around 9 pm, with the tide ebbing and darkness falling, Commodore Parker withdrew into the Atlantic Ocean. The marooned frigate Actaeon was abandoned and set ablaze. The fire eventually reached the powder magazine, causing an explosion that “issued a grand pillar of smoke, which soon expanded itself at the top, and to appearance, formed the figure of a palmetto tree." General Clinton evacuated Long Island the following day, thus concluding his unsuccessful Southern Expedition.

The Battle of Sullivan’s Island was the first decisive Patriot victory over the Royal Navy—British forces lost 219 men while the Americans sustained 38 casualties. Colonel Moultrie’s successful defense of Charleston forestalled British subjugation of the southern colonies, increased aspirations for liberty, and raised confidence in Continental endeavors. To commemorate this heroic triumph, the palmetto fortress on Sullivan’s Island was dubbed Fort Moultrie.

The Siege of Charleston: February – May 1780

Following the failed Franco-American Siege of Savannah in October 1779, Major General Henry Clinton (now the British Commander-in-Chief of North America) found favorable opportunity to exact retribution for his preliminary setbacks in the southern theater. On December 26, from his headquarters in New York City, Clinton launched another massive expedition—consisting of 8,500 British and Hessian soldiers under Lord General Charles Cornwallis and over one hundred ships commanded by Admiral Mariot Arbuthnot—to capture Charleston and reclaim the Southern Colonies.

What was expected to be a ten-day voyage turned into a perilous five-week affair. Freezing temperatures and severe storms ravaged Arbuthnot’s fleet, which nearly wrecked off the coast of Cape Hatteras. On February 12, the British army finally landed at North Edisto Inlet (thirty miles south of Charleston). From there, Clinton and Cornwallis marched through the South Carolina Lowcountry, crossing the Ashley River at Drayton Hall six weeks later. By April 1, the British had installed their first siege parallel around Charleston.

On April 8, Arbuthnot’s fleet infiltrated Charleston Harbor, skirting around Fort Moultrie’s guns. With its defensive value significantly reduced, the Moultrie garrison was broken up by Major General Benjamin Lincoln, commander of the Continental Army’s Southern Department. He recalled Colonel Charles Pinckney and the 1st South Carolina Infantry to reinforce the city’s defenses, leaving Lieutenant Colonel William Scott and 160 militiamen on Sullivan’s Island.

The converging British threat compelled General Lincoln to call a council of war. Many military personnel, including now-Brigadier General William Moultrie, favored the army’s evacuation due to dwindling provisions and compromised defensive positions. But civilian officials—namely Lieutenant Governor Christopher Gadsden and Thomas Ferguson of the Privy Council—convinced Lincoln otherwise, stating it was his “duty and inclination [to defend Charleston] to the last extremity.”

On April 13, the British began bombarding Charleston from behind their siege lines. The following morning, Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton defeated Brigadier General Isaac Huger’s cavalry at the Battle of Monck’s Corner, which effectively isolated Lincoln’s army on the Charleston Peninsula. At dawn on May 3, Captain Charles Hudson and two hundred British regulars from the HMS Richmond made on unopposed landing on Sullivan’s Island. The Redcoats subsequently encircled Fort Moultrie, forcing Lieutenant Colonel Scott to surrender four days later. On May 12, General Lincoln unconditionally surrendered to British forces; his command denied the customary honors of war. Over five thousand American troops were captured—the greatest loss of Continental forces during the Revolution—many of whom did not survive their imprisonment.

The Siege of Charleston served as an impetus for Britain’s Southern Strategy. General Lincoln’s capitulation virtually eliminated any immediate Patriot resistance and allowed the Redcoats to conduct subsequent campaigns further into the Carolinas. In June 1780, General Clinton triumphantly returned to New York City, leaving Lord Cornwallis in command of the Southern Theater. However, prior to his departure, the British Commander-in-Chief issued a series of controversial proclamations that compelled all paroled civilians to swear an oath of allegiance to the Crown and serve in Loyalist militias when mandated—conditions that contradicted earlier pardon agreements—which inadvertently proliferated partisan warfare across the South.

The Early Republic Period (1783 – 1830)

On May 5, 1791, President George Washington visited Sullivan’s Island during his Southern Tour. He was accompanied by General Moultrie and several other prominent Charlestonians while “viewing the remains of Fort Moultrie, so celebrated for its gallant defense against a powerful British fleet and army in the year 1776."

The ruinous condition of Fort Moultrie resembled many coastal fortifications across the young United States. These neglected military installations compromised national sovereignty and security measures, especially as the French Revolutionary Wars enveloped the European continent. On February 28, 1794, Secretary of War Henry Knox transmitted to the House of Representatives a report on "ports and harbors of the United States as require to be put in a state of defence [sic], with an estimate of the expense thereof"—Charleston was cited as one of sixteen defensible cities. Congress approved the Knox Study on March 20, providing for the First System of Seacoast Defenses.

On April 11, Secretary Knox appointed Paul Hyacinthe Perrault as chief engineer of Charleston Harbor’s fortifications. Between August 1794 and November 1798, Perrault constructed a second Fort Moultrie near the original Revolutionary War foundation. Captain Fracis Huger’s Company of the 2nd Regiment of Artillery and Engineers first garrisoned the new fortress in May 1799. However, much like its predecessor, Fort Moultrie II suffered from neglect as European hostilities dwindled around the turn of the nineteenth century. The fortification was ultimately destroyed by the Antigua-Charleston Hurricane of 1804.

In 1807, Congress authorized funding for the Second Seacoast Defense System, which modernized and expanded existing First System fortifications. Captain Alexander Macomb supervised construction on Sullivan’s Island, which brandished a new brick fort (Fort Moultrie III) by December 1809. During the War of 1812, British warships blockaded Charleston Harbor, but never came within range of Moultrie’s guns. Following the Treaty of Ghent, Fort Moultrie primarily served as a Native American detention center. Its most notable prisoner was Osceola—a Seminole resistance leader captured during the Second Seminole War (1835 – 1842). Tragically, after only one month of captivity, Osceola succumbed to a throat infection on January 30, 1838. Fort Moultrie’s attending physician, Dr. Frederick Weedon, decapitated the deceased Seminole chief and interred his body near the fort’s sallyport. While Osceola’s gravestone can still be viewed, his head remains lost to time—presumed destroyed during a fire at New York University’s Medical School in 1866.

From Revolution to Rebellion

Decades of turbulent sectionalist politics finally reached its watershed when Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 Presidential Election. Radical southerners and secessionist Democrats—fearing the imminent ratification of abolitionist legislation through Congress—drafted resolutions to secede from the Union. South Carolina was the first state to issue such ordinance on December 20, 1860.

Shortly after seceding, South Carolina Governor Francis W. Pickens ordered the state militia to seize various Federal properties around Charleston. At Fort Moultrie, Major Robert Anderson, commander of the 1st U.S. Artillery Regiment, realized the precariousness of his situation. On December 26, under cover of darkness, Anderson’s garrison evacuated Fort Moultrie for the more defensible Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. South Carolina troops captured Sullivan’s Island the following day. On April 12, 1861, Confederate forces shelled Anderson’s garrison at Fort Sumter, plunging the country into Civil War.

Throughout the war, Confederate soldiers inside Fort Moultrie safeguarded Charleston Harbor from Yankee invaders. Beginning in April 1863, Union ironclads and shore batteries launched a relentless, twenty-month bombardment against Charleston’s defenses, yet the rebel fortifications held firm. On January 15, 1865, the USS Patapsco—a Passaic-class ironclad monitor—sank in the harbor after colliding with a Confederate mine, resulting in sixty-two Union deaths. Five bodies were recovered and buried on Fort Moultrie’s grounds. Confederate forces ultimately abandoned Charleston that February with the approach of General William Tecumseh Sherman’s Military Division of the Mississippi.

Postwar Modernization: 1866 – 1947

Fort Moultrie underwent extensive modernization efforts during Reconstruction; however, technological advancements and evolving warfare strategies quickly rendered these improvements obsolete. In 1885, President Grover Cleveland established the Board of Fortifications (headed by Secretary of War William C. Endicott) to evaluate American coastal defenses and provide recommendations for their development. From the Board’s observations derived the Endicott System—an integrated approach to harbor defense that included breech-loading artillery, minefields, and reinforced concrete artillery bunkers. Between 1897 and 1906, Fort Moultrie transformed into a sprawling military reservation with the addition of eight Endicott batteries, heavy gun emplacements, and auxiliary minefield facilities. The United States Coast Artillery Corps was the first unit to garrison Moultrie’s new coastal defenses in 1907.

America’s seacoast fortifications underwent urgent and comprehensive reforms following the outbreak of World War II. Fort Moultrie was outfitted with state-of-the-art Anti-Motor Torpedo Boat (AMTB) batteries—each placement consisting of two fixed 90mm cannon, two mobile 90mm cannon, and two mobile 37mm cannon—and the Harbor Entrance Control Post/Harbor Defense Command Post (HECP/HDCP), which played a crucial role in maritime safety. During the summer of 1942, German submarines placed more than two dozen mines around Charleston Harbor. Fort Moultrie’s HECP/HDCP dispatched minesweepers to identify and detonate these explosives.

Fort Moultrie was deactivated in 1947 as static seacoast defenses became obsolete. While Fort Sumter became a National Monument the following year, Fort Moultrie’s former reservation was partitioned between state and local authorities. The National Park Service eventually acquired the historic fortress on September 7, 1960. It officially opened as a National Park on April 1, 1963.

Fort Moultrie currently exhibits a unique layout that reflects its two-hundred-year history of coastal defense—from the American Revolution to the Second World War. Each section of the former military reservation represents a specific time period and features contemporary weaponry and engineering technologies.

Self-guided tours of Fort Moultrie begin inside its Visitor Center, which contains several fascinating social, historical, and archaeological exhibits, along with a 22-minute feature film about the fort’s evolution. Visitors may access Fort Moultrie through its sally port across the street. The tour progresses in reverse-chronological order starting at the HECP/HDCP, which examines Charleston Harbor’s defenses during World War II. Batteries Bingham and McCorkle represent typical Endicott defenses with breech-loading artillery. The fortification’s northwest portion features two Rodman gun placements—heavy Columbiads indicative of Reconstruction Era modernization efforts. The remaining portions of Fort Moultrie have been restored to mid-nineteenth century standards. Tourists may view the Powder Magazine (c. 1840) and ruins of the Enlisted Men’s Barracks.

After exiting Fort Moultrie, visitors may walk along the Exterior Trail to view its antecedent fort locations and Cannon Row—an impressive collection of nineteenth-century artillery pieces. The footpath continues to Battery Jasper, which was the primary Endicott installation on Sullivan’s Island. Completed in 1898, this massive, reinforced concrete structure honors Sergeant William Jasper of Revolutionary War fame. While Battery Jasper never saw any wartime action, it served as a training facility for Coast Artillery and National Guard units until 1943. One gun placement remains open to public exploration and offers several interpretive exhibits detailing its operation.

Although Fort Moultrie stands in the shadow of the more-recognizable Fort Sumter, its contributions to American history are nonetheless noteworthy. Moultrie’s gallant defense of Charleston Harbor inspired hope and confidence that invigorated firm revolutionary resolve. Its well-documented renovations during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries provide valuable insight regarding the evolution of national defense strategies and military technology. This is truly one of Charleston’s most fascinating hidden historic gems.