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FTMOU_030825_010.JPG: Grave of Osceola. This is one of those embarrassing tales about how we killed off the native population here. Osceola was the head of the Seminole Indians. He agreed to peace negotiations with American troops in St Augustine and arrived under a flag of truce. The Americans immediately imprisoned him, cutting off the Indian leadership through an act of deceit (similar to how the Spaniards destroyed the Mayans and Incas). Forced to make peace with the Americans, Osceola was sent to Fort Moultrie. He arrived here on January 1, 1838 and died of disease on January 30, never being allowed to rejoin his people.
FTMOU_030825_013.JPG: Oceola
Patriot and Warrior
Died at Fort Moultrie
January 30th 1838
FTMOU_030825_014.JPG: A Seminole Leader:
Perhaps Fort Moultrie's most celebrated resident was Osceola, famed Seminole leader who led his people in their fight to remain in Florida rather than submit to removal to the Indian Territory. Osceola was given freedom of the fort while being held here from January 1838, until his death from throat infection on January 30.
Patapsco Dead:
Near the end of the Civil War on the night of January 15, 1865, the Union ironclad monitor U. S. S. Patapsco sank in Charleston harbor, victim of a Confederate mine. Sixty-two men lost their lives; five of them are buried here.
FTMOU_030825_020.JPG: Principal Magazine:
Part of the 1870's modernization program, this structure housed the fort's main powder supply. Using knowledge gained during the Civil War, the Army built with concrete and earth to protect against the new rifled artillery. The "bombproof" corridor you are standing in was designed to connect several of these magazines.
FTMOU_030825_038.JPG: Harbor Vigilance
1944 - 1945
From this camouflaged concrete observation post, Army and Navy personnel kept a round-the-clock vigil to protect Charleston Harbor. Built in 1944, this fortified underground installation housed the combined activities of the Navy's Harbor Entrance Control Post (HECP) and the Army's Harbor Defense Command Post (HDCP).
The Harbor Defense System included electronic surveillance and coastal lookouts, minefields, harbor gun batteries, minesweepers, patrol vessels, and aircraft. The system was controlled from here.
The observation platform and radio room, message center room, and operations room are equipped today as they were during World War II. If you walk downstairs you can visit some of these restored rooms, and step back into World War II.
Harbor Entrance Control Post / Harbor Defense Command Post
In the lower rooms, two officers and a crew of 36 staffed this "nerve center" day and night. From here they could coordinate air and sea forces and coastal artillery.
FTMOU_030825_041.JPG: This camouflaged concrete observation post was where Army and Navy personnel kept round-the-clock watch on Charleston Harbor from 1944 (when it was built) to 1945. Underneath, there's a fortified underground installation that you can visit.
FTMOU_030825_042.JPG: Harbor Defense 1898-1939
Batteries Bingham and McCorkle
These two rapid-fire batteries are part of the Endicott installations that protected Charleston from the Spanish American War until World War II began. The Endicott System combined heavy coast artillery, minefields, and rapid-fire guns into an integrated defense. You will see a major Endicott battery further along the tour at Battery Jasper.
15-Pounder Rapid-Fire gun in Battery McCorkle.
Gunners aimed the rapid-fire guns directly, with open sights or telescopic sights.
The fifteen-pounder rapid-fire gun is mounted on a balanced pillar mount so it can be lowered when not in use.
4.7-inch Armstrong gun in Battery Bingham.
These guns were bought from Great Britain to meet the Spanish American War crisis.
Both guns fired fixed ammunition like big rifle cartridges. Principal targets would have been minesweepers, torpedo-boats, and small warships.
FTMOU_030825_060.JPG: Harbor Defense
1873 - 1898
America's attention turned away from warfare when the Civil War ended and seacoast defenses, including Fort Moultrie, deteriorated. But another crisis wasn't long in coming – disputes with Great Britain in 1872 over the Alabama claims resulted in these two immense Civil War Rodman cannon being added to the fort's armaments. They remained in service through the Spanish American War, but by then seacoast mortars and Battery Jasper's disappearing guns provided Charleston's best defense.
15-inch Rodman Smoothbore:
An innovation in gun-casting technology developed shortly before the Civil War by General Thomas Rodman made it possible to cast these huge guns.
A crack fifteen man gun crew could load this 15-inch Rodman with 40 pounds of black powder and a 434 pound ball, aim it, fire it once every 4 minutes. Originally, four men lifted and loaded the heavy projectile by hand.
15-inch Rodman shot:
These big Rodmans were part of Charleston's defense against major enemy ships such as Spanish Admiral Cervera's fleet. Fortunately the Spanish fleet never appeared off Charleston; the Rodmans were no match for the naval rifles on the Admiral's armored cruisers.
FTMOU_030825_067.JPG: Defending Charleston 1861-1865
The 1st South Carolina Artillery Battalion occupied Fort Moultrie for the Confederacy in December, 1860. Fire from Fort Moultrie's guns helped force the surrender of Fort Sumter in April, 1861.
Rifled artillery appeared shortly before the Civil War and changed coast defense drastically. Rifled guns shot harder, farther, and more accurately than smoothbore cannon and could demolish masonry forts such as Moultrie and Sumter - Union rifled guns pounded Sumter to rubble in 1863. To cope with rifled guns, the Confederates turned Fort Moultrie into a massive earthwork to protect their own heavy rifles and smoothbores.
Civil War artillery were aimed with simple open sights.
8-inch Columbiad rifled and banded
To meet the threat of Union ironclad fleets, General Beauregard, the Confederate commander in Charleston ordered captured smoothbores to be rifled and banded. These guns fired solid iron bolts intended to pierce the armor plating.
One cannon mounted in a fort was equal to several cannon mounted on ships.
32-pounder smoothbore
When the Civil War began in 1861, Fort Moultrie was armed with 32-pounder smoothbores and light 8-inch columbiads. You can see two 32-pounders mounted on Mordecai front pintle carriages which allowed 180° rotation.
10-inch Confederate Columbiad Smoothbore
In an age where rifled artillery was not considered totally perfected, smoothbore guns were still being used. (Remainder of text illegible)
Range of artillery used at Fort Moultrie during the Civil War.
32-pounder
32 pound shot
1900 yards (1.1 miles)
8-inch Columbiad Rifled and Banded
157 pound bolt
4000 yards (2.3 miles)
10-inch Columbiad
123 pound shot
5600 yards (3.2 miles)
FTMOU_030825_074.JPG: That's Fort Sumter in the distance
FTMOU_030825_087.JPG: Harbor Defense 1809-1860
Fort Moultrie III and the War of 1812
The War of 1812 saw Fort Moultrie III armed with 12-, 18-, and 24-pounder smoothbore cannon on garrison carriages designed to fire through embrasures in the parapet wall. British warships blockaded Charleston, but never came within range of Moultrie's guns.
Troubles with Britain caused Congress in 1807 to authorize a "second system" of forts on the Atlantic coast to guard harbors, river outlets, and seaports. Fort Moultrie III, completed in 1909, protected Charleston harbor.
Forts such as Moultrie were designed to defend against wooden sailing vessels armed with smoothbore cannon.
The fort had a hot shot furnace for heating solid shot. A red hot cannonball lodged in a ship's timbers could start a disastrous fire.
After the War of 1812, America updated its coastal forts. In the 1830s and 40s we modified Fort Moultrie's parapet, bricked up the embrasures, and replaced its old cannon with 18-, 24-, and 32-pounder cast iron guns. At that time the entire fort looked about as this northwest bastion does now.
FTMOU_030825_122.JPG: Palmetto Fort
1776
In 1776 South Carolinians prepared for a British invasion by building a fort on this site. This key position on Sullivans Island, beside the main ship channel, protected the entrance to Charleston Harbor.
The fort was designed as a 500-foot square with a bastion at each corner. To build it, thousands of palmetto logs were cut and rafted to Sullivans Island. With double log walls standing 10 feet high, 16 feet apart, and filled with sand, the structure resembled an "immense pen."
On June 28, Colonel William Moultrie and the garrison of the palmetto log fort successfully defended Charleston against a British fleet. Later, Moultrie was promoted to general, and the fort was renamed to honor him.
This map shows the location and unfinished condition of the palmetto log fort in 1776 when the British fleet arrived. One corner of the fort is illustrated in the drawing above.
The fort stood near the site of the present-day Fort Moultrie III, but the exact location of the palmetto fort remains unknown.
Charleston-born Colonel William Moultrie supervised the fort's hurried construction. The fort did not look formidable, but Moultrie felt it would protect his men. When the British fleet arrived in June 1776, only half of the fort was complete, and the 400-man garrison had little ammunition and only 31 cannon (the British had nearly 300 guns).
Above an image of the South Carolina Flag and a Revolutionary War soldier: The South Carolina state flag; its blue field, white crescent, and palmetto tree represents the Revolutionary War battle fought here in 1776. The tree represents the fort's palmetto logs; and the crescent and blue color symbolize elements of the soldiers' uniforms. South Carolina adopted the flag in 1861.
FTMOU_030825_123.JPG: British Attack
June 28, 1776
Confident of victory, British Admiral Peter Parker led his fleet of nine warships in an attack on the palmetto log fort, June 28, 1776. Parker's ships anchored only 400 yards from here, firing thundering broadsides in the nine-hour battle.
The fort walls of spongy palmetto logs and sand absorbed hundreds of projectiles fired by the fleet's nearly 300 heavy guns. Inside the fort, Colonel Moultrie's 400 patriots concentrated the return fire of their 31 cannon on the largest ships, inflicting heavy damage and casualties.
The battle ended as darkness fell – the crippled fleet pulled up anchor and drifted out of range on an ebbing tide. Charleston's defenders celebrated victory in the first major seacoast engagement of the Revolution.
Admiral Peter Parker commanded the British naval force, sent to restore the king's authority to South Carolina. Despite his defeat by the patriots, Parker was knighted and later became Admiral of the Fleet.
FTMOU_030825_126.JPG: Charleston Surrenders
May 12, 1780
Almost four years after their defeat at the palmetto log fort in 1776, the British returned to Charleston with a larger force, new tactics, and respect for Fort Moultrie. The British did not repeat their earlier mistakes.
A British fleet of 96 ships arrived off Charleston on February 17, 1780. General Henry Clinton, with an army of 8,500, landed 30 miles south of Charleston. Clinton moved north to capture Fort Johnson, then marched on the city.
Vice Admiral Marriot Arbuthnot, commander of the British fleet, chose to bypass Fort Moultrie rather than attack it. The fleet stayed 800 yards offshore and quickly sailed past, despite Moultrie's guns, and anchored in Charleston Harbor. Fort Moultrie was powerless to protect the city, and the siege of Charleston began.
During the siege, most of Fort Moultrie's garrison moved to defend Charleston, leaving the fort with only 160 men, who surrendered to the British on May 7, 1780. Completely cut off by land and sea, Charleston surrendered on May 12. The port then served the British until 1782. The loss of Charleston was a crushing blow to the patriots.
FTMOU_030825_130.JPG: Discovering the Hunley
Since the night of the attack, the H.L. Hunley and its crew escaped detection by amateur and professional divers. In 1980, novelist Clive Cussler and a team of underwater archeologists began to search for the submarine in the outer Charleston Harbor. Fifteen years later they found what they believed to be the lost sub, buried in sediment in thrity feet of water four miles southeast of Fort Moultrie.
Researchers from the National Park Service, the South Carolina institute of Archaeology and Anthropology, and the Naval Historical Center soon confirmed the discovery of the Hunley and partially uncovered and mapped the vessel. Test revealed that the Hunley has sufficient hull strength to allow for recovery, conservation, and eventual display at the Charleston Museum.
FTMOU_030825_131.JPG: H.L. Hunley Disappears
Discovering the Hunley
-- The Hunley Recovery Project --
To break the blockade of Charleston Harbor, the Confederate submarine the H.L. Hunley set out to attack the Union warship Housatonic on the night of February 17, 1864. After ramming a 135-pound torpedo into the ship's wooden hull, the submarine quickly backed away.
Seconds later a massive explosion shook the Housatonic, killing five crew members and sinking the vessel in 27 feet of water. The H.L. Hunley became the first submarine in history to destroy an enemy ship, but the Hunley and its crew never made it back to shore.
William Alexander's 1902 drawings of the H.L. Hunley. The Hunley was the third in a series of experimental submarines. The Hunley sank twice during tests, killing thirteen crew members. Built from an iron steamboiler, the Hunley was 40 feet long and carried a crew of nine men. The captain navigated while the other crew members worked the crank that turned the propeller shaft. The torpedo was attached to a long wooden spar on the bow.
FTMOU_030825_132.JPG: The Hunley Recovery Project
Federal, state, and private sector underwater archeologists teamed with engineers and divers from Oceaneering International to excavate and recover the H.L. Hunley. Oceaneering, a marine engineering company, has done recovery work on the USS Monitor and NASA's Liberty Bell 7 space capsule.
In mid-summer 2000, the team excavated the sub and supported it with a continuous series of slings attached to a specifically built recovery frame. Each sling had a load cell to provide constant computerized monitoring of the hull stresses during recovery operations. Finally the Hunley was raised from its resting place and transported to a conservation facility in North Charleston, where the delicate work of conservation and preservation will continue for years.
FTMOU_030825_134.JPG: Civil War Armament
1861 - 1865
The row of cannon in front of you dates from the Civil War, when radical advances in technology increased power, range, and accuracy.
Union armories produced new, larger rifled cannon; the South had few foundries and used existing weapons, often "rifling and banding" older smoothbore cannon to increase firepower. Confederates used a wide variety of weapons at Fort Moultrie. If you look into the cannon barrels here you can see some smoothbores and some that are rifled.
Banding cannon increased its firepower. A band of wrought iron expanded by heat, was slipped over the cast iron barrel. The band cooled, shrinking tightly in place, strengthening the breech to withstand the pressure of a greater powder charge. For more strength, additional bands were added.
Rifling (cutting spiral grooves in a weapon's bore) gave a stabilizing spin to a projectile. Rifled cannon had greater range than smoothbores of similar size, and their new projectiles were usually more accurate and destructive than the old round shot and shells.
The new elongated shells had an aerodynamic shape, and were larger, heavier, and could be filled with explosives.
Lanyard:
To fire mortars and cannon, the hook of the lanyard was attached to the friction primer. When the lanyard cord was pulled, the primer's flame ignited the powder charge.
The short-barreled mortar fired spherical shells with timed fuses. Mortars were designated to fire upward in an arc, while cannon fired in a low trajectory.
FTMOU_030825_141.JPG: 13-Inch Seacoast Mortar
Union artillerists on Morris Island used mortars similar to this nine ton giant to fire 218-pound explosive shells into the Confederate fortifications. In 1874, two batteries, consisting of two mortars each, were emplaced near the site of the present Fort Moultrie visitor center.
Maximum Range: 4200 yards (3840 M)
FTMOU_030825_143.JPG: 10-Inch Confederate Columbiad
Cast at the Tredegar Foundry in Richmond, this gun is an example of what the Confederacy was able to produce with limited resources. Although less refined than similar Union pieces, it helped meet the Southern demand for heavy caliber seacoast guns.
Maximum Range: 5600 yards (5120 M)
FTMOU_030825_146.JPG: 10-Inch Columbiad (Rodman)
Advanced manufacturing and scientific design by General T.J. Rodman made this Columbiad the finest of large smoothbore armor crushers. 10 and 15 inch Rodmans were mounted in Fort Moultrie as part of a massive modernization program in the 1870's.
Maximum Range: 5600 yards (5120 M)
FTMOU_030825_149.JPG: 10-Inch Columbiad, Rifled and Banded
Captured by Confederates at Fort Sumter in 1861, this weapon was later repaired and rifled by Eason Brothers of Charleston. With an iron band and brass trunions, it presents an unique appearance. This weapon returned to service at Battery Bee on Sullivan's Island near the end of 1863.
Maximum Range: 5650 yards (5166 M)
FTMOU_030825_153.JPG: 7-Inch Brooke Rifle, Triple Banded
This quality product from the Confederate Naval Ordnance Works in Selma, Alabama was popular with Confederate artillerymen. Its long range, combined with heavy, accurate projectiles was particularly effective against Federal ironclads and siege batteries.
Maximum Range: 7920 yards (7242 M)
FTMOU_030825_156.JPG: 8-inch Parrott (200 Pounder)
Named for the inventor, Robert Parker Parrott, these guns were the most widely used new rifled artillery during the Civil War. Heavy Parrott batteries emplaced on Morris Island reduced Fort Sumter to rubble. After the Civil War, this gun was included in the new armament of Fort Moultrie.
Maximum Range: 8000 yards (7315 M)
FTMOU_030825_163.JPG: Buoyant Mine
Mines came into use at the turn of the century as part of a new system of seacoast defense. A minefield could be laid in the main ship channel in time of war and remain harmless until electrically detonated from Fort Moultrie. The minefield, however, had to be protected from minesweepers by rapid-fire batteries such as Bingham and McCorkle.
FTMOU_030825_165.JPG: Battery Jasper
1898-1943
Battery Jasper, the primary Endicott System battery on Sullivans Island, was rushed to completion in 1898 when the Spanish-American War began. This massive, reinforced-concrete structure before you was named for Sgt. William Jasper. Revolutionary War defender of the palmetto log fort.
Four powerful 10-inch disappearing rifles were mounted on the deck of Battery Jasper. These new, breech-loading weapons each weighed 55 tons, had a range of 8.5 miles, and fired shells weighing 571 pounds.
You may explore Battery Jasper's gun deck and the cave-like magazine (shell room) beneath the gun deck, walking in the footsteps of soldiers who stood ready to defend against enemy attack.
FTMOU_030825_168.JPG: Coastal Defense: The Endicott System
1898 - 1943
Battery Jasper, the black, concrete structure in front of you, was built in 1898 as part of the Endicott System - a series of concrete and steel fortifications armed with heavy-caliber guns, along the U.S. coastline. With the support of smaller batteries nearby, Battery Jasper was designed to protect Charleston Harbor.
The Endicott System developed from America's need to modernize coastal defenses in the 1880s. The system coordinated cannon, mortars, rapid-fire weapons, electrically controlled minefields, and round-the-clock coastal surveillance to protect against enemy attack. By World War II, the Endicott System was obsolete. In 1943 it was replaced here at Fort Moultrie by a new system of harbor defense. The HECP (Harbor Entrance Control Post) inside the fort remains from that new system.
Four 12-inch mortars, like those below, were positioned on each of the four emplacements of Battery Capron on Sullivans Island. They were grouped to fire 700-pound shells simultaneously at an enemy ship.
One of four "disappearing" rifles at Battery Jasper, WWI-WWII. These guns fired 10-inch 571-pound shells.
Nitroglycerine-based powder replaced black powder and breech-loading rifles replaced muzzle-loading cannon, increasing range and destructive power of shells.
Mines controlled by electric cables were placed at the entrance to Charleston Harbor. Mine fields were protected by batteries of rapid-fire 4.7 inch guns.
FTMOU_030825_205.JPG: In the background is Battery Jasper, which was closed to the public (despite the sign which said otherwise). A sign identifies it as such:
Battery Jasper (1898-1943). Battery Jasper, the primary Endicott System battery on Sullivans Island, was rushed to completion in 1898 when the Spanish-American War began. This massive, reinforced-concrete structure before you, was named for Sgt William Jasper, Revolutionary War defender of the palmetto log fort.
Four powerful 10-inch disappearing rifles were mounted on the deck of Battery Jasper. These new, breech-loading weapons each weighed 55 tons, had a range of 8.5 miles, and fired shells weighing 571 pounds.
Wikipedia Description: Fort Moultrie National Monument
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Fort Moultrie is the name of a series of forts on Sullivan's Island, South Carolina, built to protect the city of Charleston, South Carolina. The first fort, built of palmetto logs, inspired the flag and nickname (Palmetto State) of South Carolina.
History:
The fort was unnamed and not yet complete when Admiral Sir Peter Parker and nine British warships attacked it 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; there were even reports of cannon balls actually bouncing off of the walls of the structure. In any case, Charleston was saved from capture, and the fort was named for the commander in the battle, William Moultrie, and the locals, to this day celebrate 'Carolina Day' to commemorate the bravery of the defenders of the fort, the 2nd South Carolina Regiment. The fort was eventually captured by the British in the siege of Charleston. (See the southern theatre in the article titled American Revolution for more information).
As tensions heightened after Great Britain and France declared war in 1793, the United States embarked on a systematic fortification of important harbors. A new Fort Moultrie, one of twenty new forts along the Atlantic coast, was completed over the decayed original fort in 1798. Destroyed by a hurricane in 1804, it was replaced by a brick fort by 1809. Osceola was briefly detained here, with some fellow Seminole prisoners.
Between 1809 and 1860 Fort Moultrie changed little; the parapet was altered and the armament modernized, but newly created Fort Sumter became the main component of Charleston's defense. Of the four forts around Charleston harbor, Moultrie, Sumter, Johnson, and Castle Pinckney, it was Moultrie's defenders who chose not to surrender to the Confederacy. On December 26 1860 Major Robert Anderson removed his garrison at Fort Moultrie to th ...More...
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Directly Related Pages: Other pages with content (SC -- Charleston -- Fort Moultrie Natl Monument) directly related to this one:
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1998_SC_Ft_Moultrie: SC -- Charleston -- Fort Moultrie Natl Monument (57 photos from 1998)
1865_SC_Ft_Moultrie_Hist: SC -- Charleston -- Fort Moultrie Natl Monument -- Historical Images (1 photo from 1865)
2003 photos: Equipment this year: I decided my Epson digital camera wasn't quite enough for what I wanted. Since I already had Compact Flash chips for it, I had to find another camera which used CF chips. That brought me to buy the Fujifilm S602 Zoom in March 2003. A great digital camera, I used it exclusively for an entire year.
Trips this year: Three-week trip this year out west, mostly in Utah.
Number of photos taken this year: 68,000.
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