Part of Civil War @ Charleston
This page covers Civil War Forts and Military Installations open to visitors in Charleston. Other sites of interest to a Civil War visitor, including museums, homes and Plantations are listed on our places to visit page.
This earthwork battery was part of the string of forts which supported Charelston's James Island defensivve lines. It has been preserved by the S.C. Battlegground Preservation Trust. We have provided directons for the short drive from Charleston
Site of the Battle of Secessionville in 1862, this James Island Earthwork is currently being developed as a SC State Heritige Preserve. Detailes may be found on our Battle of Secessionville Page. The Opening Ceremonies are planned for June 16, 1997, the 135th. Annaversary of the Battle. Volunteer cleanup and construction days are being planned now.
Made famous in the Movie Glory, Ft. Wagner washed away over 100 years ago. Parts of Morris Island do survive and can be reached by private boat. Other sites associated with the 54th. Massachusetts do survive in Charleston, including the site of their first battle on James Island, two days before the Assault on Battery Wagner.
The Civil War era earthworks here were removed after the war, but this downtown park retains an impressive display of heavy ordnance used to defend and shell Charleston including a Columbiad used to shell Ft. Sumter in 1861; one of the Guns salvaged by Confederates from the Federal Tinclad Keokuk; several large Confederate Coastal Defense Guns; and two seacoast mortars. Charleston's monument to its Confederate Defenders stands here as does a monument to the Crews of the Submarine H. L. Hunley. Other heros are remembered here as well with a capstain from the U.S.S. Maine and a monument to the Revolutionary War Hero Sgt. Jasper. The high battery on East Bay street is virtually unchanged since the war and engravings of Citizens watching the shelling of Ft. Sumter in 1861 and the Ironclad Attack against Sumter in 1863 may be found in many history books. A bronze plate in the slate sidewalk of High Battery near the steps orients visitors to the City's Civil War Landmarks. We maintain that at the Battery the Ashley and Cooper Rivers come together to form the Atlantic Ocean. My son loves the canons there, as have all Charleston children since the war. In the picture at left he sits astride a fake canon with a history of its own arising out of an attempt to appease residents after the real canon was removed from their neighborhood. When the fake was presented, residents noticed the odd ridge around the interior of the muzzle. The fakers said the cannon was improvised during the Revolution by casting it around a piece of pipe. Such a rare and unusual canon had to be displayed for the public. Years after it was mounted, the people responsible confessed it was a manufactured fake, but Charleston keeps it for the lesson it teaches about trusting experts with handy explanations. Charleston's "little angel" water fountain is also here, beloved by all children. An evening stroll here is a Charleston institution.
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Civil War @ Charleston