Commemorating Carolina Day
While most of America celebrates independence on July 4, here in Charleston we begin the celebration almost a week earlier.
On June 28, 1776, Col. William Moultrie and his men at Fort Sullivan on Sullivan’s Island handed British forces their first major defeat in what would soon become the American Revolution. Known as “Carolina Day,” the Palmetto Society has commemorated this occasion since 1777. Let us back up and provide a little context.
In September of 1775, Lord William Campbell—the last Royal Governor of South Carolina—snuck out of Charles Town [as it was known before 1785] and fled to a waiting British ship in the harbor. In doing so, Campbell left governmental control of the colony in the hands of the revolutionary minded Provincial Congress. This congress drafted a state constitution in March of 1776 becoming the second of the thirteen colonies and first southern colony to do so. Later that same month, the Provincial Congress declared itself adjourned in the morning only for the same men to reassemble in the afternoon as the First General Assembly of South Carolina. This assembly elected John Rutledge as its president and Henry Laurens as vice president. No longer ruled by British appointees, South Carolina now governed itself.
Aware of South Carolina’s importance as a British colony, this early government turned its attention to defenses. Fort Johnson—constructed in 1708 and named for Gov. Nathaniel Johnson—guarded James Island and the southwestern area of the harbor including the Ashley River. Col. William Moultrie received orders to construct a new fortification on Sullivan’s Island across the harbor from Fort Johnson. Historian Nic Butler offers a detailed description, writing:
The square plan of the fort followed the principals of traditional fortification design, but the builders had to improvise with the building materials…Moultrie and his engineers made use of the island’s abundant palmetto trees and created (as far as we know) the world’s first palmetto log fort. The construction included an inner and outer wall of palmetto trunks, about sixteen feet apart and about sixteen feet tall. Between these walls, enslaved laborers shoveled thousands of cubic yards of sand to form a sturdy rampart and parapet for the defenders.
This improvisation proved crucial to the fort’s defense and its legacy still reverberates to this day.
In May of 1776, a British fleet sailed from New York south to Charles Town. This fleet arrived off the coast under the command of Commodore Sir Peter Parker. Warships sailed over the treacherous bar which provided a natural defense of the harbor and positioned themselves just out of Col. Moultrie’s cannon range. Meanwhile, General Henry Clinton took his land troops and came ashore on the northern end of Long Island [today Isle of Palms] with the intention of launching an amphibious assault across Breach Inlet onto Sullivan’s Island. Tensions rose as days ticked by with enemy in sight but just out of the range of guns for both sides. Finally on June 28, the guns erupted.
The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Print Collection, The New York Public Library. "The attack on Fort Moultrie, Sullivan's Island, South Carolina, on June 28, 1776." New York Public Library Digital Collections. Accessed June 26, 2024. https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47da-3236-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99
Henry Gray, Held at Gibbes Museum of Art
Faden, William, and Thomas James. A plan of the attack of Fort Sulivan, near Charles Town in South Carolina: by a squadron of His Majesty's ships, on the 28th of June , with the disposition of the King's land forces, and the encampments and entrenchments of the rebels from the drawings made on the spot. [London: S.N, 1776] Map. https://www.loc.gov/item/gm71000629/
Commodore Parker and nine of his warships sailed within range and fire broadside after broadside at the incomplete fort on Sullivan’s Island. Col. Moultrie and his men were severely outgunned and had only limited ammunition. Therefore, Moultrie ordered his men to focus their fire on the two largest British ships. As Butler writes,
“The South Carolina soldiers took time to aim their cannon precisely, firing fewer shots but causing a devastating amount of damage to the enemy warships.”
Further, Parker’s plan to attack the fort from the back where it was not completed was foiled when the ships ran aground on a sandbar.
On the other end of Sullivan’s Island, Gen. Clinton’s amphibious assault was thwarted by precision fire from the 3rd Regiment of South Carolina Riflemen under the command of Col. William Thomson. This withering fire combined with an error in judgement on the depth and danger of Breach Inlet forced Clinton to retreat in ignominious defeat on that day. However, Clinton would return to Charles Town in 1780 and lessons learned in 1776 would pay great dividends towards his fortune.
As the smoke settled and the sun set, the British fleet sought the safety of the open ocean. Across the city, the name William Jasper garnered praise and celebration.
Jasper, a young recruit, had sprung into action during the battle when Moultrie’s militia flag [indigo blue with a white crescent] had fallen after its pole had been shattered by enemy fire. As historian Walter Edgar recounts, “Jasper grabbed a gun sponger, attached the flag to it, and mounted it on the bastion closest to the enemy. In a public ceremony President Rutledge took off his own sword and presented it to the sergeant.”
This day offered the British their first major defeat in the American Revolution. It also provided a major morale boost for those fighting for independence across the colonies. In South Carolina, the palmetto tree and Moultrie’s militia flag planted the roots of what would eventually become the state’s flag and symbol. One year later in May of 1777, a newly formed organization, the Palmetto Society, published an advertisement in the Gazette of the State of South Carolina which read:
‘'As the Twenty-eighth day of June 1776, will be ever memorable in South Carolina…a considerable number of the inhabitants of Charles Town, have associated themselves together principally for the purpose of celebrating the anniversary of that day with decent and cheerful festivity…That they will be glad of the company of any gentlemen, FRIENDS to LIBERTY and Lovers of their Country who may incline to join them.”
This day has been commemorated nearly every year since and continues even today.
Happy Carolina Day!