It was built of logs, laid one upon another in parallel rows, at a distance of sixteen feet, bound together at frequent intervals with timber, dovetailed and bolted into the logs. The spaces between were filled up with sand. The merlons were walled entirely by palmetto logs, notched into one another at the angles, well bolted together and strengthened with pieces of massy timber. Such was the plan of the work;but, with all the diligence of the officers, and all the industry of the men, it remained unfinished at the perilous moment when a powerful British fleet appeared before its walls. The defence was confided to Col. Moultrie.
The force under his command was four hundred and thirty-five men, rank and file, comprising four hundred and thirteen of the Second Regiment of Infantry, and twenty-two of the Fourth Regiment of Artillery.
The whole number of cannon mounted on the fortress was thirty-one, of these, nine were French twenty-sixes; six English eighteens;nine twelve and seven nine pounders.*
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* Weems, in his Life of Marion, represents the cannon as made up principally of TWENTY-FOUR and THIRTY-SIX pounders; but the official accounts are as I have given them. See Drayton's Memoirs, vol. 2, pp. 290-1.
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General Charles Lee, who had been dispatched by the Continental Congress, to take command of the Army of the South, would have abandoned the fortress even before the appearance of the enemy. He was unwilling, in such a position, to abide the conflict. He seems, naturally enough for an officer brought up in a British Army, to have had an overweening veneration for a British fleet, in which it is fortunate for the country that the Carolinians did not share.
In the unfinished condition of the fort, which really presented little more than a front towards the sea, his apprehensions were justifiable, and, could the fort have been enfiladed, as the British designed, it certainly would have been untenable. From the moment of his arrival, to the very moment when the action was raging, his chief solicitude seems to have been to ensure the defenders of the fortress a safe retreat.
It is to their immortal honor that this mortifying measure was unnecessary.
On the 20th of June, 1776, a day ever memorable in the annals of Carolina, the British ships of war, nine in number,*1* commanded by Sir Peter Parker, drew up abreast of the fort, let go their anchors, with springs upon their cables, and commenced a terrible bombardment.
The famous battle which followed makes one of the brightest pages in our history. Its events, however, are too generally known to make it necessary that we should dwell upon them here. A few, however, belong properly and especially to our pages. The subject of this memoir was a conspicuous sharer in its dangers and in its honors.
The fire of the enemy was promptly answered, and with such efficiency of aim as to be long remembered by the survivors. Having but five thousand pounds of powder, with which to maintain a conflict that raged for eleven hours, with unabated violence, it became necessary, not only that the discharge from the fort should be timed, but that every shot should be made to do execution. In order to do this the guns were trained by the field-officers in person; hence, perhaps, the terrible fatality of their fire. The Bristol, 50 gun ship, Commodore Sir Peter Parker, lost 44 men killed and thirty*2* wounded. Sir Peter himself lost an arm.
The Experiment, another 50 gun ship, had 57 killed and 30 wounded.*3*To these two vessels in particular, the attention of the fort was directed.
The words, passed along the line by officers and men, were --"Look to the Commodore -- look to the fifty gun ships."*4*The smaller vessels suffered comparatively little. Their loss of men was small. The injury to the vessels themselves was greater, and one of them, the Acteon, run aground, and was subsequently burnt.
The Carolinians lost but twelve men killed and twice that number wounded.
