Rediscovering Charleston's Colonial Fortifications

In past programs we’ve discussed the histories of the most prominent features of Charleston’s early fortifications, such as Granville Bastion, Craven Bastion, and the Half-Moon Battery. Numerous details regarding these works can be found among the surviving records of South Carolina colonial General Assembly and other archival sources, so we know a good bit about their design, location, and demolition.

For the next program, however, I’m going to attempt to tell the story of the lesser-known bastions of the walled city; specifically, the bastions named Ashley, Carteret, and Colleton, as well as the enigmatic structure known as Blake’s Bastion or Blake’s Battery. These structures existed contemporaneously with the aforementioned bastions, during the early years of the eighteenth century, but relatively little is known about them. For a variety of reasons, these lesser bastions merited less attention from the denizens of early Charleston, and thus it’s now difficult for us to tell their stories. The following is a brief summary of what I’ve been able to learn by reading all of the surviving journals of our colonial government.

When credible intelligence of a Spanish plan to invade Charleston reached the South Carolina General Assembly in December 1703, the town’s fortifications consisted of an unfinished brick “fortress” at the south end of [East] Bay Street, a recently finished brick “Half-Moon Battery” at the east end of Broad Street, and a brick wall along the waterfront connecting the fortress and the battery. The assembly voted to begin immediately the construction of fortifications around the most defensible part of the town (roughly 62 acres of high land between Vanderhorst Creek to the south and Daniel’s Creek to the north), by means of a chain of bastions and redans (also called “salient angles”) connected by an earthen wall (or “entrenchment”) and surrounded by a moat. These works, which were “largely perfected” by October 1704, transformed urban Charleston into a “walled city” and endured for nearly three decades.

The corners of the trapezoid-shaped walled city were protected by diamond-shaped works called bastions, each of which was named for one of the Lords Proprietors who owned the Carolina colony. The brick “fortress” at the southeast corner was named Granville Bastion, while the new brick work at the northeast corner was named Craven Bastion. These large structures were maintained and used into the 1780s, and consequently we know a good bit about their history. The other bastions didn’t last nearly as long, and we know far less about them.

A close-up view of the map of Charles Town published in 1711 by Edward Crisp, highlighting the “lesser-known” bastions.

Colleton Bastion, the southwest corner of the walled city, stood approximately on the site now occupied by the First Scots (Presbyterian) Church at the southwest corner of Tradd and Meeting Streets. It was constructed and armed in 1704, but its cannon were removed to the “curtain line” along East Bay Street sometime between November 1721 and November 1723. No descriptions of its appearance or dimensions are known to exist. Colleton Bastion was gone by the spring of 1733, when the newly formed Presbyterian congregation purchased the site and began building their first church.

Carteret Bastion formed the northwest corner of the town wall, but its precise location is a bit of a mystery. It probably stood somewhere very near the northwest corner of Meeting Street and Horlbeck Alley/Cumberland Street, but we’re not yet sure. The matter is complicated by the fact that the northward trajectory of Meeting Street was altered slightly in the years immediately after the bastion was removed. Archaeological testing in the early 1980s and early 2000s eliminated the southwest and southeast corners as possible sites of this bastion, and anecdotal evidence suggests that at least part of it may have covered the northeast corner of that intersection. Like Colleton Bastion, we know that Carteret Bastion was armed and ready by late 1704, but by December 1723 its cannon had been removed to augment the arsenal at Craven Bastion. Similarly, we know nothing about the appearance or dimensions of Carteret Bastion.

Ashley Bastion stood due west of Granville Bastion, and may have originally been intended to form the southwest corner of a square “fortress” planned in 1696–97. Its shape is unclear in the “Crisp Map” of 1711, but in Col. John Herbert’s “Ichnography or Plann of the Fortifications of Charlestown,” drawn on 21 October 1721 (now among the records of the National Archive of the United Kingdom), Ashley Bastion is drawn as a hexagonal structure of indistinct size. Although its placement between Granville Bastion and Colleton Bastion may seem irrational, we know Ashley Bastion stood on the west side of a creek or inlet and swamp, and thus its location enhanced the security of the town’s southern side. Beyond these facts, we know little about the size, construction, or precise location of Ashley Bastion. Like the other lesser bastions, it had been stripped of its armaments (and probably demolished) by December 1723.

Blake’s Bastion, also called Blake’s Battery, was not technically a bastion. Rather, it was a “V”-shaped detached work, like a fleche, placed a short distance due south of Granville Bastion. Due to the sparse number of surviving documentary references to its existence, however, it is unclear whether Blake’s Battery was built before or after the construction of its neighboring bastion. Tactically, the purpose of this work was no doubt to defend the mouth of the small creek or inlet that ran between Granville Bastion and Ashley Bastion. Although we know nothing about its size or precise location, we know that Blake’s Battery was built at least partly of brick. In December 1712, when work commenced on the construction of “the new brick church” that became St. Philip’s Church, the South Carolina General Assembly (who funded the church) ordered Col. William Rhett to oversee the removal of “the bricks that compose the battery called Blakes Battery” to the site of the new church. After that reference, Blake’s Battery disappears from the historical record.

If you’d like to learn more about these long-forgotten fortifications, and perhaps help me puzzle through the documentary evidence, please join me for an illustrated lecture titled:

“The Lesser-Known Bastions of Early Charleston”

Wednesday, August 12th 2015 at 6 p.m.

Charleston County Public Library Auditorium, 68 Calhoun Street, 29401