Fort Moultrie
Fort Moultrie was a continuation of US coastal defense and is located on Sullivan's Iceland at the harbor entrance to Charleston ( South Carolina ). The task of the fort was to seal off the entrance to Charleston between the islands of Morris Island and Sullivan's Island in cooperation with Fort Sumter , Castle Pinckney and Fort Johnson (none of which is left).
Decommissioned in 1947, it was returned to the State of South Carolina by the US Army and returned to the federal government in 1960 to operate as a memorial. It is administered by the National Park Service as part of the Fort Sumter and Fort Moultrie National Historical Park .
history
The first fortifications built at this point towards the end of the 18th century consisted only of earth or sand walls, which had been reinforced with the help of trunks of the palmetto palm , and did not yet have a name.
On June 28, 1776, a formation of nine British warships under the command of Admiral Sir Peter Parker attacked the fort for the first time with massive artillery. The bombardment with the then common full bullets had little effect, as these were simply swallowed by the sand walls. The palm trunks, on the other hand, showed such a resilient effect that the projectiles did not cause any major damage here either. In retrospect, it was even reported that some of the bullets simply ricocheted off the trunks. (In the case of projectiles from smaller ship guns over a greater distance, quite plausible.) After nine hours of artillery duel, the British ships had to withdraw without having achieved anything. The fortification was later named Fort Moultrie after the then commandant, Colonel William Moultrie. When a palmetto palm was included in the flag of South Carolina in 1861 , this was related to the effect of the palm trees built in Moultrie.
1780 British troops Charleston and the fort which they called Fort Sullivan and from which it is only after completion of the captured American Revolutionary War following the peace treaty withdrew. After that, the fort was left to its own devices and fell into disrepair. In 1791 only a few remains are reported.
After the outbreak of war between France and Great Britain in 1793, funds were approved by the United States Congress to initially build a system of 20 new forts to protect the Atlantic coast. In 1798 the second Fort Moultrie was completed. Without being used, this facility also fell into disrepair until a hurricane in 1804 razed the remaining remains to the ground. In 1807 it was recognized that the entire fort system of the Atlantic coast was in dire need of repair. In the course of these construction measures, the third Fort Moultrie was built on Sullivan's Island, this time using the brick construction method customary at the time. It was completed in 1809. Little changed in the structure until 1860, the parapet was rebuilt and the armament modernized. After the construction of Fort Sumter began in 1829, all funds flowed into this project and Fort Moultrie did not experience any structural improvements.
During the Second Seminole War , Fort Moultrie was used as a prison for Seminole Indians captured in Georgia and Florida . Chief Osceola was imprisoned here in 1837 and died in prison the following year.
In December 1860, South Carolina left the Union, whereupon the Union troops remaining in Fort Moultrie decided to abandon the fort and increase the occupation of Fort Sumter. (The Charleston Fortring, with Sumter, Pinckney, Moultrie and Johnson, was built for mutual support, but ironically, the fortifications received their baptism of fire as opponents, since fire on Fort Sumter was opened on April 12, 1861 at around 4:30 a.m. from Fort Moultrie .) In April 1863, the armed forces of the northern states began a twenty-month bombardment of the fort from land and sea, which, however, was initially unsuccessful. Only after the Confederate troops evacuated Charleston in February 1865 did the crew of Fort Moultrie also withdraw and leave the completely demolished fort to the Union troops. The new ammunition from guns with rifled barrels (rifled cannons) had destroyed the brick walls, but resistance was offered by the sand walls, which the crew had repeatedly repaired and which almost completely absorbed the impacts.
After the end of the civil war , the fort was rebuilt and modernized, the magazines and ammunition depots were moved underground and made more resistant to enemy artillery with meter-thick earthworks. In view of the rapid development of weapons, President Grover Cleveland commissioned Secretary of War William C. Endicott in 1885 to take stock of the coastal fortifications. As a result of this inventory, the fort got concrete and steel reinforcements as well as detached batteries to the east (including Battery Jasper, Battery Logan), so that in the end Fort Moultrie was only part of the military area (Fort Moultrie Military Reservation) on Sullivan's Island.
Fort Moultrie was under military occupation in both world wars. During World War II , it was from here that the port of Charleston was protected from German submarines .
The construction
As with most of the American coastal forts of this period, it is an artillery plant with over-the-bench (free-standing) firing guns. Defense against infantry attacks was seen as secondary and is only present in the classical style in the throat through two bastion-like throat suitcases . In the front area, which is formed by a protruding angle, close defense by rifle fire is only possible from the parapet (without your own cover). The entire front section and the left flank are in the blind spot. Only the rear parts of the wall are made of masonry. The front and the left flank consist of sloping earth walls.
Since 1960 the fort has been a memorial and museum under the administration of the National Park Service . It has been reconstructed in such a way that all phases of the story are visible. Inside, the visitor is therefore offered a look back over the history of this American coastal fortification back to the makeshift tree trunk fort from 1776. The fort is co-administered by the nearby Fort Sumter National Monument . The museum in the visitor center shows the history of Sullivan's Islands for the slave trade in a special exhibition . Around 40% of all African slaves were transported to the American continent via the island.
A collection of 17 historic cannons is on display in the fort's grounds on Cannon Row, spanning the period from 1830 to 1890. They are considered to be the best exhibits of the American coastal fortifications of this period.
literature
- William C. Davis & Bell I. Wiley: The Civil War - Fort Sumter to Gettysburg . Black Dog & Leventhal, New York 1994, ISBN 1-884822-08-8 .
Web links
Coordinates: 32 ° 45 ′ 33 ″ N , 79 ° 51 ′ 27 ″ W.
Individual evidence
- ^ National Park Service: Fort Sumpter - Historic Cannons' Return to Fort Moultrie Marks the End of a Major Preservation Project , June 3, 2013