LXVI.

and leaping through an embrasure, and braving the CHAP. thickest fire from the ship, he took up the flag, returned with it safely and planted it, as he had prom- June. ised, on the summit of the merlon.

The calm sea gleamed with light; the almost vertical sun of midsummer glared from a cloudless sky; and the intense heat was increased by the blaze from the cannon on the platform. All of the garrison threw off their coats during the action, and some were nearly naked; Moultrie and several of the officers smoked their pipes as they gave their orders. The defence was conducted within sight of those whose watchfulness was to them the most animating: they knew that their movements were observed from the house tops of Charleston; by the veteran Armstrong, and the little army at Haddrell's Point; by Gadsden at Fort Johnson, who was almost near enough to take part in the engagement, and was chafing with discontent at not being himself in the centre of danger. Exposed to an incessant cannonade, which seemed sufficient to daunt the bravest veterans, they stuck to their guns with the greatest constancy.

Hit by a ball which entered through an embrasure, Macdaniel cried out to his brother soldiers: "I am dying, but don't let the cause of liberty expire with me this day."

Jasper removed the mangled corpse from the sight of his comrades, and cried aloud: "Let us revenge that brave man's death."

The slow, intermitted fire which was skilfully directed against the commodore and the brave seamen on board the "Bristol," shattered that ship, and carried wounds and death. Never had a British squad

1776.

28.

LXVI.

June.

CHAP. ron "experienced so rude an encounter." Neither the tide nor the wind suffered them to retire. Once the 1776. springs on the cables of the "Bristol" were swept 28. away; as she swung round with her stern toward the fort, she drew upon herself the fire of all the guns that could be brought to bear upon her. The slaughter was dreadful; of all who in the beginning of the action were stationed on her quarter deck, not one escaped being killed or wounded. At one moment, it is said, the commodore stood there alone, an example of unsurpassed intrepidity and firmness. Morris, his captain, having his fore-arm shattered by a chainshot, and also receiving a wound in his neck, was taken into the cockpit; but after submitting to amputation, he insisted on being carried on the quarterdeck once more, where he resumed the command and continued it, till he was shot through the body, when feeling dissolution near, he commended his family to the providence of God and the generosity of his country. Meantime the eyes of the commodore and of all on board his fleet were "frequently, and impatiently," and vainly turned toward the army. If the troops would but coöperate, he was sure of gaining the island; for at about one o'clock he believed that he had silenced the guns of the rebels, and that the fort was on the point of being evacuated. "If this were so," Clinton afterward asked him, "why did you not take possession of the fort, with the seamen and marines whom you practised for the purpose?" And Parker's rejoinder was, that he had no prospect of speedy support from Clinton. But the pause was owing to the scarcity of powder, of which the little that remained to Moultrie was reserved for the mus

LXVI.

June.

ketry as a defence against an expected attack from CHAP. the land forces. Lee should have replenished his stock; but in the heat of the action Moultrie received 1776. from him this letter: "If you should unfortunately expend your ammunition without beating off the enemy or driving them on ground, spike your guns and retreat."

A little later, a better gift and a better message came from Rutledge, now at Charleston: "I send you five hundred pounds of powder. You know our collection is not very great. Honor and victory to you and our worthy countrymen with you. Do not make too free with your cannon. Be cool and do mischief." These five hundred pounds of powder, with two hundred pounds from a schooner lying at the back of the fort, were all the supplies that Moultrie received. At three in the afternoon, Lee, on a report from his aide-de-camp Byrd, sent Muhlenberg's Virginia riflemen to reënforce Thomson. A little before five, Moultrie was able to renew his fire. At about five the marines in the ships' tops, seeing a lieutenant with eight or ten men remove the heavy barricade from the gateway to the fort, thought that Moultrie and his party were about to retreat; but the gateway was unbarred to receive a visit from Lee. The officers half naked, and begrimed with the hot day's work, respectfully laid down their pipes as he drew near. The general himself pointed two or three guns, after which he said to Moultrie, "Colonel, I see you are doing very well here, you have no occasion for me, I will go up to town again;" and thus he left the fort. When at a few minutes past seven the sun went down in a blaze of light, the battle was still raging,

28.

LXVI.

June

CHAP. though the British showed signs of weariness. The inhabitants of Charleston, whom the evening sea 1776. breeze collected on the battery, could behold the flag 28. of crescent liberty still proudly waving; and they continued gazing anxiously, till the short twilight was suddenly merged in the deep darkness of a southern night, when nothing was seen but continual flashes, followed by peals as it were of thunder coming out from a heavy cloud. Many thousand shot were fired from the shipping, and hardly a hut or a tree on the island remained unhurt; but the works were very little damaged, and only one gun was silenced. The firing from the fort continued slowly; and the few shot they were able to send, were heard to strike against the ships' timbers. Just after nine o'clock, a great part of his ammunition being expended in a cannonade of about ten hours, his people fatigued, the "Bristol" and the "Experiment" made nearly wrecks, the tide of ebb almost done, with no prospect of help from the army at the eastward, and no possibility of his being of any further service, Sir Peter Parker resolved to withdraw. At half-past nine his ships slipped their cables, and dropped down with the tide to their previous moorings.

Of the four hundred and thirty-five Americans in the fort, who took part in this action, all but eleven remained alive, and of these but twenty-six were wounded. At so small a cost of life had Charleston been defended and a province saved.

When, after a cannonade of about ten hours, the firing ceased, the inhabitants of Charleston remained in suspense, till a boat from Moultrie announced his victory. At morning's dawn the "Acteon" frigate

LXVI.

June

was seen, fast aground at about four hundred yards CHAP. from the fort. The "Syren" had got off; and so too had the "Sphinx," yet with the loss of her bowsprit. 1776. Some shots were exchanged, but the company of the 28. "Acteon" soon set fire to her and deserted her. Men from the fort boarded her while she was on fire, pointed and discharged two or three of her guns at the commodore, and loaded their three boats from her stores. In one half of an hour after they abandoned her, she blew up, and to the eyes of the Carolinians, the pillar of smoke, as it rose over the vessel, took the form of the palmetto.

The "Bristol" had forty men killed and seventy one wounded. Lord William Campbell received a contusion in his left side, and, after suffering two years, died from its effects. Sir Peter Parker was slightly injured. About seventy balls went through his ship; her mizzenmast was so much hurt that it fell early the next morning; the mainmast was cut away about fifteen feet below the hounds; and the broad pendant now streamed from a jury-mast, lower than the foremast. She had suffered so much in hull, masts, and rigging, that but for the stillness of the sea she must have gone down. On board the "Experiment," twenty three were killed and fifty six wounded; Scott, her captain, lost his left arm, and was otherwise so severely wounded, that his life was long despaired of; the ship was much damaged, her mizzen gaff was shot away. The whole loss of the British fleet, in killed and wounded, was two hundred and five. The royal governors of North Carolina and of South Carolina, as well as Clinton and Cornwallis, and seven regiments, were witnesses of the defeat.