As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.........
It is a strange thing the glamour of the New England bias and propaganda which set Bunker Hill as the shot heard round the world. Strange because if I were to mention Charleston Harbour, no one would have any idea really of that place or the epic battle which was arrayed there in 1776.
It had been decided upon by the British military that a landing and march would be made in the summer of 76 in the Carolinas as the loyalists were brimming there and it would be the most simple of things.
Fort Moultrie which guarded the harbour, and commanded by the same, was certain after two broadsides from the frigates to fold and then it would be time for tea and hanging the Yanks.
When the battle began, the Americans had 728 rounds for their 26 cannon. 21 of those cannon lay on the south side of the Fort.
The Fort was not to be envisioned as some stone castle of grande design, but it was instead palmetto logs put into place, separated by a 16 feet pile of sand, with the cannon poking out of it.
It should not be overlooked in this, that while the "fort" was basically a sand pile, that sand absorbed the shells of the British, and those palmetto planks were soft and did not offer up deadly splinters to the Americans in being shattered.
The British brought two main 50's, the Bristol and the Experiment, to be joined by the frigates Active and Soleby of 28 guns for the frontal assault.
Three ships, the Aceaton and Syren, like 28 gun frigates with a corvette, 20 gun Sphinx, were to pass the fort, and anchor westward, and protect the main batteries from fire ships, and to direct a raking enfilade across the forts main batteries.
A bomb vessel, the Thunder and an armed transport, the Friendship would take position in the east as supportive fire.
At 11:15 AM, the main ships were in line and opened fire on the Americans. The ships anchored though too far out to utilize grape shot effectively, either out of concern of grounding or Yankee fire.
The Thunder lofted it's bombs at the Americans, but Moultrie had constructed a morass in the middle of the fort which swallowed up the British bombs, and outside the fort, the sand accomplished the same purpose.
Except for four shots fired at the HMS Active while she was still under sail, the Americans held their fire. The order on the line was, "Mind the Commodore and mind the two 50 gun ships", which meant not firing until the ships were within one quarter mile and then concentrate fire on the two main ships.
The British blasted the fort, sometimes four shells slamming into the walls at once, so much that the inner merlons shook, but she held fast and the Yanks poured out their well directed fire.
The British would lose in killed and wounded 205 seamen, and the decks cleared at times from the American fire. The Americans would lose 37 killed and wounded.
It puzzled the British commander, Peter Parker, why the Americans were so silent. It did not enter his mind that the Yanks had almost no powder to fire at the British. It was deemed the American guns had been dismounted, but that was not the case. The Americans, although absolutely untrained, were resolutely staying with their orders and under the protection of the sand walls, were firing with effect.
From 3:30 to 6 pm, the American cannon fired not a shot, and thereafter only 3 of the cannon opened again due to lack of ammunition.
The British ships assigned to rake the fort, never reached position and ran aground. The Thunder, it's battle platfrom broken in the bricks, so was unable to continue the battering.
It was at 9 PM, Parker assessing the situation, that the British were almost out of shot themselves, the army would not support, the tide running against them, they decided to withdraw.
Some American born Britishers deserted after the battle and reported that, the British were stunned in the Americans had given them more than they had bargained for.
When firing slacked from the Americans and it was thought the guns were dismounted, the exasperated seaman cheered that they were glad of it, as they had never taken such a drubbing in their lives.
Edmund Burke issued a statement of praise for the British, and he was as much of a friend to Americans in:
"Never did British valour shine more conspicuously, nor did our ships in an engagement of the same nature experience so serious an encounter."
That statement must be understood, for the Americans at Charleston Harbour, gave the British a fire worse than Trafalgar, and for far longer. That is what the British seadogs were talking of in the drubbing.
All the British could do was retreat. They made repairs, and hurriedly sailed north to join in the attack upon New York.
In my personal studies of "European Warfare", there is always the pride and prejudice of peoples to think their military leaders were the greatest in history, when my examination of Napoleon at Waterloo, as much as the heralded British Wellington revealed an absolute incompetence. Waterloo was nothing but Napoleon wasting forces and the British absorbing death until the French had no more to expend.
American Generals in Andrew Jackson and Thomas Stonewall Jackson, I believe would have routed both the British and French easily.
There is a matter of British superiority in numbers, but whenever the Americans were in a fair fight or even at odds against them, they time and again as Charleston Harbour proved, kicked the hell out of the British to the reality they took sharp notice.
This affords the reality that the Europeans were not fighting with the gusto which Americans did in their wars when trained.
The difference between English victories at Waterloo and defeat in America, was not on the English side as they in Wellington or Howe undertook the same defensive war. The difference was that France had Napoleon and America had George Washington.
Washington knew when to fight and when not to fight. If George Washington had commanded at Waterloo, the French would have won.
Charelston Harbour was a great American victory and it remains unknown. If the British had simply struck those forces for New York, they would have won the rebellion by crushing New York in 1776.
God does direct battles and wars for His Will to be done, and the Americans were given priviledge in this war for founding that Christian nation.
Both Clinton and Parker were defeated by Americans in the Carolina landing in a land of Torries. It is an amazing feat the Carolinians did for these United States, and should be honored and remembered.
Charleston Harbour was the first real American victory which set the stage for 1777 in more American victories which cemented her nation status in being recognized by first France, then Spain and then Holland.
Less than 728 shots secured the American victory. 728 shots in Carolina was all there stood between America a nation and America subject colony.
agtG
