Charleston Harbor Defenses In The Colonial Era

Natural Hazards In The Harbor


Fort Johnson


Sullivan's Island Fort (erected 1776)


Charleston Shore Batteries

From a discussion of Fort Mechanic (1794):  When the Seven Years War (French and Indian War) broke out in 1756, Charles Towne’s British officials strengthened the city’s defenses against a possible attack. Royal Governor James Glen hired William Gerard de Brahm to design a citywide fortification plan; its implementation continued into the term of Glen’s successor, William H. Lyttelton. On November 8, 1757, the Commissioners of Fortifications recorded that "The Middle Bastion between Broughton's Battery and Granville's Bastion being finished and cannon mounted therein, and his Exc'y the Governor being acquainted therewith, he agreed with the Commissioners to meet there on Thursday next (being his Majesty's birthday) … to drink his Majesty's health and name the said Bastion." The new middle bastion was named for the governor himself, Lyttelton’s Bastion. Fears of invasion subsided in 1763, and Charleston’s defensive works were ignored for years.

During the Revolutionary War, a belt of waterfront fortifications "formed of earth and palmetto wood, judiciously placed and mounted with heavy cannon,” were placed around the peninsula in early 1780. Lyttelton’s Bastion was rebuilt and garrisoned by Captain Joseph Darrell’s Company of Cannoneers, members of the South Carolina militia. The fortification was often called Darrell’s Battery, but in his Memoirs, General William Moultrie referred to the twelve-gun battery as Lyttelton’s. After the British evacuated Charleston in December 1782, the city’s fortifications were again neglected.  . . .