CHAP. arms, artillery, and ammunition, had left the transLXIV. ports for a naked sand-bank that was to them a 1776. prison. Compelled to propose something, Clinton fixed on the twenty third for the joint attack; but it was hindered on that day by an unfavorable wind.

June.

In the following night, Muhlenberg's regiment arrived. On receiving Lee's orders they had instantly set off from Virginia and marched to Charleston, without tents, continually exposed to the weather. The companies were composed chiefly of Muhlenberg's old German parishioners; and of all the Virginia regi ments, this was the most complete, the best armed, best clothed, and best equipped for immediate service. The Americans were now very strong.

The confidence of Sir Peter Parker in an easy victory was unshaken. To make all sure, he exercised a body of marines and seamen in the art of entering forts through embrasures; intending first to silence Moultrie's battery, then to land his practised detachment, and by their aid enter the fort. His presumption was justified by the judgment of Lee. That general, coming down to the island, took Moultrie aside and said: "Do you think you can maintain this post?" Moultrie answered: "Yes, I think I can." But Lee had no faith in a spirited defence, fretted at Moultrie's too easy disposition, and wished, up to the last moment, to remove him from the command.

On the twenty fifth the squadron was increased by the arrival of the "Experiment," a ship of sixty guns, which passed the bar on the twenty sixth. Letters of encouragement came also from Tonyn, then governor of East Florida, who was impatient for an attack on Georgia; he would have had a body of

LXVI.

June.

Indians raised on the back of South Carolina; and a CHAP. body of royalists to "terrify and distract, so that the assault at Charleston would have struck an astonish- 1776 ing terror and affright." He reported South Carolina to be in "a mutinous state that delighted him;" "the men would certainly rise on their officers; the battery on Sullivan's Island would not discharge two rounds." This opinion was spread through the fleet, and became the belief of every sailor on board. With or without Clinton's aid the commodore was persuaded that his well drilled seamen and marines could take and keep possession of the fort, till Clinton should "send as many troops as he might think proper, who might enter the fort in the same way."

One day Captain Lempriere, the same who in the former year had, with daring enterprise, taken more than a hundred barrels of powder from a vessel at anchor off St. Augustine, was walking with Moultrie on the platform, and looking at the British ships-ofwar, all of which had already come over the bar, addressed him: "Well, Colonel, what do you think of it now?" "We shall beat them," said Moultrie. "The men-of-war," rejoined the captain, "will knock your fort down in half an hour." "Then," said Moultrie, "we will lie behind the ruins and prevent their men from landing."

On the morning of the twenty eighth a gentle 28. sea-breeze prognosticated the attack. Lee, from Charleston, for the tenth or eleventh time, charged Moultrie to finish the bridge for his retreat, promised him reënforcements, which were never sent, and still meditated removing him from his command; while Moultrie, whose faculties, under the outward show

June

CHAP. of imperturbable and even indolent calm, were strained LXVI. to their utmost tension, rode to visit his advanced 1776. guard on the east. Here the commander, William 28. Thomson, of Orangeburg, of Irish descent, a native of Pennsylvania, but from childhood a citizen of South Carolina, a man of rare worth in private life, brave and intelligent as an officer, had, at the extreme point, posted fifty of the militia behind sand-hills and myrtle bushes. A few hundred yards in the rear breastworks had been thrown up, which he guarded with three hundred riflemen of his own regiment from Orangeburg and its neighborhood, with two hundred of Clark's North Carolina regiment, two hundred more of the men of South Carolina under Horry; and the raccoon company of riflemen. On his left he was protected by a morass; on his right by one eighteen pounder and one brass six pounder, which overlooked the spot where Clinton would wish to land.

Seeing the enemy's boats already in motion on the beach of Long Island, and the men-of-war loosing their topsails, Moultrie hurried back to his fort at full speed. He ordered the long roll to beat, and officers and men to their posts. His whole number, including himself and officers, was four hundred and thirty five; of whom twenty two were of the artillery, the rest of his own regiment; men who were bound to each other, to their officers, and to him, by personal affection and confidence. Next to him in command was Isaac Motte; his major was the fearless and faultless Francis Marion. The fort was a square, with a bastion at each angle; built of palmetto logs, dove-tailed and bolted together, and laid in parallel rows sixteen feet asunder, with

LXVI.

June 28.

sand filled in between the rows. On the eastern and CHAP. northern sides the palmetto wall was only seven feet high, but it was surmounted by thick plank, so as to 1776. be tenable against a scaling party; a traverse of sand extended from east to west. The southern and western curtains were finished with their platforms, on which cannon were mounted. The standard which was advanced to the south-east bastion, displayed a flag of blue with a white crescent, on which was emblazoned LIBERTY. The whole number of cannon in the fort, the bastions, and the two cavaliers, was but thirty one, of which no more than twenty one could at the same time be brought into use; of ammunition there were but twenty eight rounds for twenty six cannon. At Haddrell's Point across the bay Armstrong had about fifteen hundred men. The first regular South Carolina regiment, under Christopher Gadsden, occupied Fort Johnson, which stood on the most northerly part of James Island, about three miles from Charleston, and within point-blank shot of the channel. Charleston was protected by more than two thousand men.

Half an hour after nine in the morning, the commodore gave signal to Clinton that he should go on the attack. An hour later the ships-of-war were under weigh. Gadsden, Cotesworth Pinckney, and the rest at Fort Johnson watched all their movements; in Charleston the wharfs and water-side along the bay were crowded with troops under arms and lookers-on. Their adversary must be foiled, or their city may perish; their houses be sacked and burned; and the savages on the frontier start from their lurk ing-places. No grievous oppressions weighed down

June

28.

At

CHAP. the industry of South Carolina; she came forth to the LXVI. struggle from generous sympathy; and now the bat1776. tle is to be fought for her chief city and the province. The "Thunderbomb," covered by the "Friendship," began the action by throwing shells, which it continued, till more than sixty were discharged; of these some burst in the air; one lighted on the maga zine without doing injury; the rest sunk in the mo rass, or were buried in the sand within the fort. about a quarter to eleven, the "Active," of twenty eight guns, disregarding four or five shots fired at her while under sail; the "Bristol," with fifty guns, having on board Sir Peter Parker and Lord William Campbell, the governor; the "Experiment," also of fifty guns; and the "Solebay," of twenty eight, brought up within about three hundred and fifty yards of the fort, let go their anchors with springs upon their cables, and began a most furious cannonade. Every sailor expected that two broadsides would end the strife; but the soft, fibrous, spongy wood of the palmetto withstood the rapid fire, and neither split, nor splintered, nor started; and the parapet was high enough to protect the men on the platforms. When broadsides from three or four of the men-of-war struck the logs at the same instant, the shock gave the merlons a tremor, but the pile remained uninjured. Moultrie had but one-tenth as many guns as were brought to bear on him, and was moreover obliged to stint the use of powder. His guns accordingly were fired very slowly, the officers taking aim, and waiting always for the smoke to clear away, that they might point with more precision. "Mind the commodore, mind the fifty-gun ships,"