Battle of Charleston

28-29 June 1776

Continental Victory

The initial British military campaign in the South focused on Charleston, South Carolina. On 28 June 1776, British forces attempted to seize Fort Sullivan, the key to the defenses of Charleston. Naval gunfire from their vessels damaged the fort but could not destroy it. Unable to sustain the attack, the British withdrew, temporarily ending British efforts to invade the South.

Patriot forces in South Carolina built Charleston’s defenses wisely. The fort’s construction of soft Palmetto logs absorbed the British solid shot instead of splintering to pieces and sending out clouds of deadly splinters as hard wood logs would have done. The British land attack was poorly planned and executed as well, and never came close to threatening Fort Sullivan. British ships surrounded Sullivan's Island but uncharted sand bars hindered the assault. For three years following the fiasco at Charleston the British left the south unmolested. Overconfident Americans decided they did not need to raise any large regular forces in the South, creating a weakness that would come back to haunt them. Loyalist refugees in London and New York, however, continued to insist that large numbers of loyal subjects of the King were still waiting for the British in the south, ready to rise again if only British troops returned.

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