Thomson Park



Introduction

It is my privilege to be with you today, and to share some little known facts about the pivotal role played by our predecessors in this state and this city in the birth of our great nation.

The technology revolution is enabling a history revolution as information available to researchers is increasing daily. Today's historians – amateurs and professionals alike – have access to primary accounts written centuries ago that were not available to early authors. These letters, diaries, pension applications, accounts, notes, and maps provide new insights into old history, and fascinating glimpses into the lives of the people who made that history.

So, let's take a fresh look at June 1776 in Charles Town, and some details that may be new to you as they were to me. Most of us know that the American Revolution began in 1775 as patriots in all 13 colonies overthrew their British Royal governments and the armed rebellion began in Massachusetts, but few appreciate the crucial involvement of Charles Town and South Carolina in the eight-year struggle that produced the United States of America.

Early Turning Point

An early turning point in the Revolution came on this day 236 years ago – the same day Thomas Jefferson's committee delivered the draft Declaration of Independence to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. On June 28th 1776 the British suffered an embarrassing, indeed humiliating, defeat in the Battle of Sullivan's Island. Patriots at the two opposite ends of that island defeated simultaneous attacks by the British army and navy to win one of America's first great victories.

Why Attack Charles Town?

You might wonder why the British were invading. They wanted to mobilize loyalist support and take back the most important city in the South. The capital of South Carolina was the center of the rebellion and the commercial hub of the region, with a busy port and lucrative trade. Charles Town was the richest city and South Carolina was the richest colony in all of British North America. Nine of the 10 most valuable estates probated on the eve of the Revolution were here in the South Carolina Lowcountry. The British and Americans struggled for control of this wealth and power throughout the Revolution.

The Battle of Sullivan's Island

A large squadron of nearly 60 vessels carrying more than 5,000 British soldiers and sailors arrived in these waters in on June 1st, with a plan to reclaim Sullivan's Island and later Charles Town.

Their strategy called for the navy under Commodore Peter Parker to bombard the American's palmetto log fort from the sea, while the army under General Henry Clinton crossed Breach Inlet, between Long Island and Sullivan's Island, to storm the fort from its unfinished and vulnerable rear. The British army landed on Long Island, now the Isle of Palms, and the navy anchored just outside Charles Town harbor to prepare for battle.

The Fight at Breach Inlet

The 3,000 British regulars and loyalists on Long Island had powerful artillery and three dedicated warships. They faced a diverse band of 780 Americans on the Sullivan's Island side of Breach Inlet led by Colonel William Thomson, affectionately known as "Danger". Thomson and most of his men were from "off". He and many of his 3rd Regiment rangers and South Carolina militia came from the backcountry, on the other side of I-95. (I appreciate those of you who made the trip from the Midlands and the Upstate to honor our heritage on this, another sultry June 28th.)

The South Carolinians at Breach Inlet were joined by Continentals from North Carolina and Virginia and Indians from the Catawba and affiliated tribes like the Cheraw, PeeDee, and Waccamaw. Slaves and at least one free black man served at Breach Inlet, working not only as laborers but also as soldiers.

The first combat casualty in the Battle of Sullivan's Island occurred about June 18th when Thomson's men shot a British officer scouting Long Island. “He was dressed in Red faced with Black and had a Cockade & Feather in his Hat, & a sword by his side.” That's how they knew he was an officer. The opposing armies at Breach Inlet then skirmished every day leading up to June 28th. Men on both sides were wounded and killed in some fierce fighting while the British delayed the combined army-navy attack.

The Americans moved cannons up to the inlet, threw up small fortifications of palmetto logs, and strengthened their defenses so that General Clinton thought he was facing 3 or 4 thousand men, quadruple the number he actually faced. The patriots' imposing attitude and entrenchments, depth of the inlet, and ten days of combat convinced Clinton there was no way for his troops to reach Sullivan's Island without tremendous sacrifice. Despite great numerical advantage, the British army had been outmaneuvered.

On the morning of Friday June 28th, Colonel William Moultrie was at Breach Inlet conferring with Colonel Thomson, when the longtime colleagues recognized British signals for the main attack they had been expecting. Moultrie galloped the three miles back to the fort to rally his men, while Thomson and his men turned back five different British offensives at Breach Inlet.

The British attacked across the inlet with long-range cannons from a marsh island and from warships in a creek. They shot mortars and light artillery from behind an oyster bank at the edge of the inlet. They made a surprise musket attack from the marsh, and they attempted an amphibious crossing in rowboats. Thomson's men repelled every attack.

Today, Breach Inlet is an idyllic spot in a spectacular setting – a quarter-mile wide expanse of water between two resort islands on the Atlantic Ocean. The shoreline is among the most beautiful and expensive land in the state. The landscape was very different before accreting sand filled much of the inlet in the 19th century. In 1776, the Long Island shore was just this side of today's IOP Connector, near the Isle of Palms commercial district. Breach Inlet reached from that shore all the way to Sullivan's Island. The treacherous span of water was more than a mile wide; laced with creeks, sandbars, tidal pools, oyster banks, marsh, and pluffmud; and overlooked by high sand dunes on the two wilderness islands.

Next time you're out there, look at the Thomson Park exhibits and think about the British soldiers trying to fight their way across that expanse of water – struggling with the current and running aground on the sandbars, in 15 flat-bottom boats packed with 40 to 60 men each, slowly rowing toward a beach defended by patriot sharpshooters entrenched up to their eyeballs in the sand dunes … and led by a man named "Danger".

Richard Hutson, later the first intendent (or mayor) of Charleston, wrote that Thomson's cannon spread havock, devastation, and death. A loyalist aboard one of the British warships in the creek beside Long Island said it was impossible for any set of men to sustain so destructive a fire as the Americans unleashed. One of Thomson's men responding to the musket attack recalled "Our rifles were in prime order, well-proved and well-charged; every man took deliberate aim at his object, and it really appeared every ball had fatal effect … the proportion, which fell, never to rise again, was very great."

Patriot accounts said the British attempted to cross the inlet two or three times and continued firing all afternoon and into the night. At 10pm the Americans had only two charges left for their big cannon (an 18-pounder), but the British never knew and General Clinton withdrew. A British soldier summarized in a letter to his brother: "they would have killed half of us before we could make our landing good."

The Fight at the Fort

The action at Breach Inlet was out of sight and soon lost in history, but what the people here in town saw was awe-inspiring. As Colonel Moultrie rushed back from Breach Inlet, Charlestonians on the peninsula saw British warships bearing down on his unnamed, unfinished fort guarding the harbor. They heard the first shots from a 13-inch British mortar about this time of day, and were captivated as the British navy attacked with one of the fiercest cannonades in the annals of eighteenth-century naval warfare. One eyewitness described it as "an eternal sheet of fire and smoke."

South Carolina President John Rutledge watched the action through a spyglass from the second floor of the new Exchange Building. Nervous citizens crowded the top floors and porches of houses along the battery. From this very spot they strained to see the action six miles away where 435 of their sons, fathers, brothers, husbands, cousins, and friends were being pounded by some 270 guns from nine warships of the world's greatest navy.

The story has been well-told for centuries, so I'll spare you the details that I find so engrossing – spongy palmetto logs absorbing shots all day and into the night; cool, calm Moultrie and his men firing only one round for every 20 fired by the British, yet inflicting terrible casualties; British frigates running aground on the sandbar where Fort Sumter would be built decades later; the inspirational valor of men on both sides; and the absolute and total patriot victory.

When was the last time you visited Fort Moultrie? That's where this history comes alive, and nobody can tell the story like the park rangers. Go, take your children and grandchildren, and pass the flame of American idealism along to the next generation and the next! Let them see your awe and gratitude.

We are blessed to have Fort Moultrie and Fort Sumter and the Charles Pinckney Site in our own backyard – incredible living classrooms! National Parks have been called America's Best Idea, and we are all co-owners of these historic sites. Please join me in recognizing Superintendent Tim Stone, Historian Rick Hatcher, and the rangers of the National Park Service.

Results

This incomprehensible American victory changed the course of the war. It caused the British to abandon their Southern strategy, and patriots remained in control of the most important city south of Philadelphia for the next four years. The victory on Sullivan's Island boosted revolutionary spirits throughout America and fueled the fire of discontent in England. Listing things that went wrong in the catastrophic campaign, a commentary in The London Evening Post said, "Who does not see that our just and omnipotent Creator approves of this resistance? The man who believes that the Sullivan's Island affair was accidental, is an Atheist."

Major Battle

Unfortunately, popular histories of the American Revolution have focused on the fighting in the northeast, and treated this major battle as a raid or sideline action. Ladies and gentlemen, the British Southern Expedition was no raid. It was a strategic initiative ordered by King George III himself. It took eight months to plan and execute and it committed a substantial portion of the British war machine. The king himself expressed disappointment at the military fiasco … saying with typical British understatement, "… the attack upon Charles Town has not been crowned with success, …perhaps I should have been as well pleased if it had not been undertaken."

This battle transcended the conspicuous gallantry of Colonel Moultrie, Sergeant Jasper, Danger Thomson, and the other men on Sullivan's Island.

Thousands of patriot soldiers covered the landscape from East of the Cooper to West of the Ashley, and on the outlying islands. The total military force facing off for battle included more than 12,000 British and American soldiers and sailors. That number equaled the entire population of the city, at the time the 4th largest in America. Imagine an influx of combat troops doubling the population today!

Like World War II

This battle was intensely personal for the people living here. They were as afraid as you or I would be if the most fearsome military in the world were attacking us here today. People were defending their homes, and life as they new it would be over if they lost. Eliza Lucas Pinckney wrote "a heavy cloud hangs over us …"

The entire community pitched in to prepare for the invasion – men, women, and children; black and white; rich and poor; young and old. The public response brings to mind World War II and the Greatest Generation's civilian contributions. Some people present today lived the stories we've all heard of rationing, Rosie the Riveter, gripping anxiety, confusion, and senseless loss. I salute those of you who lived through, participated in, and remember the sacrifices.

In this place in 1776, citizens both in and out of uniform scrambled to prepare – men and women with familiar like Drayton, Bull, Middleton, Lynch, Laurens, Huger, Pinckney, Bee, Motte, Heyward, Allston, Dewees ... The names sound like a street map of Charleston.

Here on the peninsula, citizens removed the lead weights from the windows of their houses to be cast into musket balls. Rain and heat didn't keep them from erecting barricades on the main streets and small fortifications wherever the British might disembark. President Rutledge even requested that gambling and horse racing be suspended!

In a dramatic and expensive move, stores and buildings on the wharves were torn down to clear fields of fire to the Cooper River. This transformation not only improved security; it resulted in a more beautiful city that one of the enemy said had an "air of magnificence". Soon after, another said "no other American city [could] compare with Charles Town in the beauty of its houses and the splendor and taste displayed therein". … Just like today.

Commendation

The news of the stunning and decisive patriot victory spread throughout the colonies and back to England as fast men could run, horses could gallop, and boats could sail. In one of their first official acts after declaring independence, the Continental Congress sent the thanks of the United States of America to "Major General Charles Lee, Colonel William Moultrie, Colonel William Thomson, and the officers and soldiers under their commands; who, on the 28th of June last, repulsed, with so much valor, the attack which was made on the State of South Carolina, by the fleet and army, of his Britannic Majesty."

Charles Lee

Who was this Charles Lee mentioned along with Moultrie and Thomson? The Continental Congress knew the British were coming and sent their most experienced general to take charge of the entire Southern army. Major General Charles Lee (no relation to Robert E) arrived in early June as the British sails spread across the horizon.

Lee was tall, skinny and ugly; arrogant and temperamental; vain, vulgar, and crude. He traveled with a pack of dogs and was said to smell worse than they did. But he had vast military experience and he was brilliant. In Charles Town, he came on like a ball of fire – the polar opposite of Thomson, Moultrie, and the Charles Town elite.

When he arrived and inspected a new fortification at Fort Johnson across the Ashley River, his first question was "What damned fool designed this battery? When told that it had been planned by Mr Drayton the Chief Justice, Lee said "he may be a very good Chief Justice, but he is a damned bad engineer."

Upon inspecting the unfinished fort on Sullivan's Island, General Lee said it was a slaughter pen that would not last a half hour under attack. He wanted to abandon the island and consolidate the defense closer to Charles Town. 34 year-old President Rutledge supposedly sent a confidential note to Colonel Moultrie saying, "General Lee wishes you to evacuate the fort. You will not without an order from me. I will sooner cut off my hand than write one."

Charles Coatesworth Pinckney observed that General Lee "…appears very clever, but is a strange animal; however …we must put up with ten thousand oddities in him on account of his abilities".

Those abilities paid off at Breach Inlet when Lee advised the frontiersman Thomson about artillery. Virtually overnight, Thomson had his men dig an entirely new defensive line … beyond the range of British heavy artillery, but positioned so that British troops crossing the inlet would be within range of the patriot cannons. The result was "havock, devastation, and death".

Close

A hero of World War II, Admiral Bull Halsey said "There are no great men. Just great challenges which ordinary men, out of necessity, are forced by circumstances to meet." Charles Lee was not "normal", but most who rose to the challenge in the Battle of Sullivan's Island were just regular folks like you and me.

Twenty-six years after the battle, General Moultrie reflected in his memoirs, "In the course of this reading, it will be found how ignorant we were in the art of war, at the commencement of our revolution." This refreshing candor from a great American illustrates the truth that our founding fathers and mothers were just ordinary people who accomplished extraordinary things.

Thanks to them, the United States of America won the freedom to pursue the revolutionary ideals we're still trying to attain. These were enlightened, adaptive, progressive men and women of action, and we are rightly proud of them.

I sometimes wonder how we could make them proud of us. If John Rutledge, William Moultrie, "Danger" Thomson, and Eliza Lucas Pinckney were here in this day and time, what would they expect of us? Certainly not just holding onto the past – they were ambitious agents of change who turned the world upside down.

I think they would want us to honor our heritage by changing ourselves and our world to create a better future as they did. They would want us to remember the Battle of Sullivan's Island as not only Charleston history and South Carolina history, but American history at its finest.

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