Grog, Grit and Gunnery

"It being a very hot day, we were served along the platform with grog in fire-buckets, which we partook of very heartily. I never had a more agreeable draft." With these surprising words, Colonel William Moultrie, 45, commander of the 2nd South Carolina Regiment, was recounting not an assault upon some savanna-side grogshop but a striking colonial victory off Charles Town, South Carolina. In a bitter ten-hour action, Moultrie and 435 men inflicted heavy losses upon a strong British naval squadron under the command of Commodore Sir Peter Parker (two ships of the line, six frigates, the bomb ketch Thunder and more than 30 other vessels). This forced Parker's fleet and several thousand British regular troops under Major General Sir Henry Clinton to give up a combined land-and-sea attack on Fort Sullivan near Charles Town.

The British--having been informed by three lately deposed Royal Governors that large Loyalist forces were ready to fight for the King--originally planned to launch their southern campaign near Wilmington, North Carolina. General Clinton arrived off Cape Fear with a small force in mid-March. But Commodore Parker's larger supporting fleet was delayed for two months, partly because of bad winds. By the time the two joined in May, the main Loyalist forces in North Carolina, some 1,800 kilt-wearing Scots colonials led by Allan Macdonald, had been long since routed by Patriot militia in the battle of Moore's Creek. Disappointed, Clinton and Parker sailed south.

By early June they were off Fort Sullivan, which stands at the tail end of a low, sandy, four-mile-long island that is roughly the shape of a sperm whale. It was built to guard the northern entrance to Charles Town Harbor, but its palmetto-wood walls are still incomplete on the shoreward sides, where they stand only 7 feet high. The British would seize the fort and garrison it, Clinton decided, and thus interdict all trade and privateer traffic to and from the busiest port south of Philadelphia.

The British attack began on a low tide at 11:15 o'clock on the morning of June 28. Clinton had landed 2,500 light infantry, grenadiers and seamen on an undefended island northeast of Sullivan's Island and separated from it by a shallow passage known as "the Breach." The original plan called for a wading infantry attack on Sullivan's Island and a simultaneous naval assault. Parker accordingly anchored most of his fleet, including the flagship Bristol and the Experiment, both of 50 guns, only a few hundred yards from the fort and proceeded to pound it with broadside after broadside. At the same time, the bomb ketch Thunder anchored farther south and arched explosive 10-inch mortar shells into Moultrie's position. Three lighter vessels, the Actaeon and the Syren, both 28 guns, and the Sphinx, 20, drifted westward into the harbor, hoping to get round the fort and attack it from behind.

Moultrie had only 28 rounds of powder and shot for each of his 26 guns, which ranged from 9-to 26-pounders. He served pails of grog to keep up fighting spirits, and despite the rain of fire from more than 200 British guns, he forced his gunners to reply slowly and carefully, concentrating on the two biggest enemy ships. The effects were soon evident. The top of the Bristol's mainmast was shot clean off, and her mizzen was splintered. Twice, all the men on the flagship's quarter-deck were killed or wounded, except for the intrepid Commodore Parker, who nevertheless suffered indignity. A Rebel cannon ball, so a British seaman reports, "passed so near to Sir Peter's coattail as to tear it off, together with his clothes, clear to the buff."

This devastating combination of colonial grog and gunnery was aided by British misfortune. Clinton's charts had told him that the low-tide depth in the Breach was a wadable 18 inches. But before the attack was launched the general, to his mortification, discovered that the charts were wrong. Any British grenadier stepping proudly off into the Breach would soon sink in over his head. Small boats to ferry the men over were ordered but they proved unseaworthy. Meanwhile the Actaeon, Syren and Sphinx, attempting to attack Moultrie's rear, all ran aground. And most of the 60 shells accurately thrown by Thunder landed in a kind of morass in the middle of the fort compound. They disappeared more or less harmlessly, like stones tossed into a hog wallow.

New supplies of powder and shot were run into Fort Sullivan during the afternoon, and the cannonade continued until after dark. But by 9 o'clock Parker broke off. He had two ships in tatters and one, the Actaeon, so badly aground that she had to be scuttled. Sixty-four British seamen lay dead and 141 wounded--against 17 dead and 20 wounded colonials. The fight was never reopened. The British ships were too badly damaged and British pride was too badly jolted. As the British force prepared to sail north to join General Howe in New York, one shocked British officer recalled the battle: "This will not be believed when it is first reported in England. I can scarcely believe what I saw on that day, a day to me one of the most distressing of my life."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.