Posted
on June 28, 2015
What
happens when an unfinished American fort made out of palmetto logs
and sand – a fort with just 31 cannons – was attacked by the
British Royal Navy with their 270 cannons?
The Americans withstood the attack and held onto the fort!
On
this date in 1776 – just a week before the Declaration of
Independence was adopted by the Continental Congress – a fort on
Sullivan's Island in South Carolina was attacked from the sea by a
fleet of British ships and from the land by 2,000 British soldiers.
How-oh-how,
you might ask, did the greatly outnumbered Americans win?
The
American forces had 780 sharpshooters to defend the fort. The channel
between Long Island, where the British troops had landed, and
Sullivan Island was too deep for the land forces to wade across. And they couldn't come across by small boat without getting picked off by
sharpshooters.
In the meantime, the British had miscalculated the
depth of the water, so some of their ships ran aground. With those
ships stuck or damaged, the others couldn't organize a proper attack.
Finally, the ships that fired cannons at the fort made very little
impact, because the palmetto logs were sort of spongy; they absorbed
the impact of the cannon balls without affecting the fort or its
occupants. On the other hand, the cannon fire by the Americans badly
damaged the British fleet.
After
about nine hours, the British withdrew. They didn't attack any harbor
or city in South Carolina again until 1780.
By
the way, the Liberty Flag used during this battle to
rally the troops later served as the inspiration for South Carolina's
state flag. It makes a lot of sense to me, now, that the palmetto
tree appears on the flags – because the palmetto really did
safeguard the Americans against the British attack!
The
anniversary of this first American victory in South Carolina, during
the Revolutionary War, was celebrated the next year as Palmetto Day.
Eventually, it became Carolina Day.
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