Charleston's Historic Past
Historic Fort SumterAt 4:30 a.m., April 12, 1861, Confederate gunners fired on Fort Sumter and the Civil War began. After 34 hours of non-stop shelling, Sumter's Union garrison surrendered, and on April 14 the Confederates took the fort. Fort Sumter then became the focus of a bitter, four-year struggle as Union forces tried to regain the fort and control Charleston Harbor.
Fort Sumter TodayFort Sumter today looks much different than it did in 1861. The top two tiers are gone, destroyed during the Civil War. And the fort's center is now dominated by Battery Huger, a huge, black concrete artillery emplacement built in 1898-99.
Used by the army for coastal defense through World War II, Fort Sumter today reflects more than one hundred years of military activity (1930s-1940s). The fort became a National Monument in 1948.
Charleston's Historic Past
National Park Sites to VisitCharleston has played a rich and varied role in America's history, as a defender of America's birth, home to founding fathers, trade center, ignitor of civil strife, and coastal defense link.
Three sites that display key elements of Charleston's storied past are preserved by the National Park Service and can be visited.
Fort Sumter, famous for the Civil War's opening battle, guards the entrance to Charleston Harbor. Reached only by boast, it was the focus of explosive conflict from 1861-65. Reduced to ruin by war's end, Fort Sumter was partially rebuilt and modernized, continuing as a military site until the end of World War II.
Fort Moultrie, on Sullivans Island at the mouth of Charleston Harbor, was the site of a Revolutionary War battle in which patriot troops repulsed the invading British Navy. Guarding Charleston for nearly 200 years, Fort Moultrie traces American coastal defenses from the nation's birth through World War II.
Charles Pinckney - patriot, statesman, and a framer of the Constitution - helped mold America in nearby Mt. Pleasant, part of Pinckney's coastal plantation, called Snee Farm, is preserved as Charles Pinckney National Historic Site. Features there provide a glimpse of America's early years.
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