Battery Park (Charleston)
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Battery Park (also known as The Battery), which includes a park known as White Point Gardens, is a landmark promenade in Charleston, South Carolina famous for its stately antebellum homes. First used as a public park in 1837, it became a place for artillery during the American Civil War. It stretches along the shores of the Charleston peninsula, bordered by the Ashley and Cooper Rivers. Fort Sumter is visible from the Cooper River side and the point, as is Castle Pinckney, the World War II aircraft carrier USS Yorktown (CV-10), Fort Moultrie, and Sullivan's Island.
In the 18th century, rocks and heavy materials were used to fortify the shore of the Cooper River. In 1838, this area of the Battery, known as High Battery, became a promenade.
Before becoming a park, Fort Broughton (ca. 1735) and Fort Wilkins (during the American Revolution and War of 1812) occupied White or Oyster Point, so named because of the piles of bleached oyster shells on the point. This site is now known as White Point Garden(s) and boasts many large oak trees, a bandstand, a few memorials, and pieces of artillery, some of which were used during the United States Civil War.
A monument in White Point Gardens commemorates the hanging near that site of pirate captain Stede Bonnet and his crew in 1718, as well as the 1719 hanging of Richard Worley's pirates. The monument states that 29 of Bonnet's crew were executed close by. Although 29 of Bonnet's crew were sentenced to death, the evidence suggests that only 22 were actually hanged.[1]
[edit] See also
Media related to Battery Park (Charleston) at Wikimedia Commons- Charleston Battery, a professional men's soccer team in the Charleston area.
[edit] References
- ^ Thomas Bayley Howell & William Cobbett, A Complete Collection of State Trials and Proceedings for High Treason and Other Crimes and Misdemanors, Vol. XV, London, 1816, p. 1290.
