Fort Moultrie

Fort Moultrie National Monument
IUCN category V (protected landscape/seascape)
The Fort Moultrie National Monument. The United States flag is at half-mast because of Gerald R. Ford's death.
Location	Sullivan's Island, South Carolina, USA
Nearest city	Charleston, SC
Area	200 acres (0.81 km²)
Established	1948
Visitors	922,776 (in 2002)
Governing body	National Park Service

Image:Fort Moultrie1.3.jpg|thumb|250px|Fort Moultrie in 1861]]

Confederate Fort Moultrie on Sullivan's Island looking east into Charleston Harbor.

Fort Moultrie is the name of a series of citadels 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. It is named in honour of the commander in the battle, General William Moultrie

• see also Battle of Sullivan's Island.

Fort Moultrie is the only unit of the National Park System where the entire 171-year history of American seacoast defense (1776-1947) can be traced.

Fort Sumter National Monument, SC

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. Charleston was saved from capture, and the fort was named for the commander in the battle, William Moultrie. Charleston locals 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. In The Seminole Indian fighter, Osceola, was detained here in late 1837 with some fellow Seminole prisoners. Osceola died of Malaria in January 1838 and was buried at Fort Moultrie, his grave still maintained as part of the current national monument.

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 the stronger Fort Sumter. Three and a half months later, Confederate troops shelled Fort Sumter into submission and the American Civil War began. In April 1863, Federal ironclads and shore batteries began a twenty-month bombardment of Forts Sumter and Moultrie; the Confederates held the forts and the harbor until February 1865, when the army evacuated the city. By then, Fort Sumter was a pile of rubble, and Fort Moultrie had been pounded below a sand hill, which subsequently protected it against Federal bombardment. Rifled cannon had proved their superiority to brickwork fortifications, but not to the endurance of the Confederate artillerymen who manned the forts throughout.

Fort Moultrie was modernized in the 1870s, with huge rifled cannon and deep concrete bunkers; further modernization in the 1880s turned all of Sullivan's Island into a military complex, of which the old fort was just a part.

The fort evolved with the times through World War II and beyond, but in recent years has been turned over to the National Park Service. The fort is now constructed as a tour backwards in time through the fort's defenses, from World War II back to the palmetto log fort of William Moultrie. It has been designated the Fort Moultrie National Monument, a unit of Fort Sumter National Monument.

External links

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