Ft. Johnson and Hampton Park, Charleston, SC

While in Charleston, SC to present to the Fort Sumter Civil War Round Table last month, I took some time to visit a couple Civil War related sites. First up was Ft. Johnson, at the end of Ft. Johnson Road on James Island, not far from my brother’s house where I was staying. Per the American Battlefield Trust:

In September of 1775, the Council of Safety ordered William Moultrie, commander of the 2nd South Carolina Regiment [more on that regiment and one of its commanders later], to seize Fort Johnson on the northeast point of James Island in Charleston County, South Carolina. Moultrie assigned Colonel Isaac Motte to command three 50-man companies led by Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, Barnard Elliott, and Francis Marion to attack the fort. Motte took possession of the fort with little resistance, and this capture was the first-time soldiers raised the new South Carolina over a property previously controlled by the Crown. Decades later, on April 12, 1861, at 4:30 a.m., a flaming mortar shot from Fort Johnson arced into the air and exploded over Fort Sumter, marking the official beginning of the American Civil War. Confederate soldiers buried the structure during the war, but the fort was uncovered in 1931. In 1972, the site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Ft. Sumter in the distance

Zoom to Ft. Sumter

Magazine

I also took made a quick stop at Hampton Park, near the Citadel, which was the site of what many call the nation’s first “Memorial Day:”

Hampton Park is a large site. The historic marker above is the only evidence of the event I observed (Visit Historic Charleston)