Civil War Charleston- Chapter 9- Mount Pleasant/Sullivan’s Island

Stop 1- Fort Moultrie- 1214 Middle Street. See separate post for Stop 1.

Stop 2- Battery Marshall/Breach Inlet- Battery Marshall was located on the eastern side of Breach Inlet. The Hunley left from the Battery Marshall dock near Breach Inlet on February 17, 1864, around 7:00 PM on its way to attack the USS Housatonic, which it struck and sank around 9:20 PM.

The Battery Marshall Dock area

**The Battery Marshall Dock was located a few hundred yards from Breach Inlet on the inland side of Sullivan’s Island** **picture taken from the HL Hunley bridge**

**The H.L. Hunley on a dock on Shem Creek in Mount Pleasant- painted by Conrad Wise Chapman from an initial sketch he did in December of 1863**. Chapman painted himself **into the picture as the seated soldier.** Some have stated that the individual standing in the painting was H.L. Hunley. Hunley died on October 15, 1863, during the second fatal accident involving the submarine before Chapman did the sketch for his painting. After that accident the submarine was brought here to be repaired and cleaned.

Sometime in December 1863 or January 1864 the Hunley was moved to Breach Inlet. The dock was located in the creek behind the island. The men would travel from where they were staying at the Ronkin’s Long Room (205 Ferry Street in Mount Pleasant), walk across Cove Inlet via a footbridge (at the end of modern-day Pitt Street), across Cove Inlet to Sullivan’s Island and then continue walking along the shore for another 5 miles to Battery Marshall. This area may have been selected because it was very secluded (it was devoid of civilian buildings and civilians). I like to put together puzzles of the civil war and I bought the puzzle of the Kunstler painting below from the Warren Lasch Conservation Center online store.

Battery Marshall

**View looking south from the marker, the battery would have been in the middle of the picture in the houses behind the tree line**

Shown below is one of the most unusual houses I have ever seen. Battery Marshall was located in the area of Battery 520 a reinforced concrete World War II coastal battery that was completed in 1944. The battery was 430 feet long and 50 feet high. It had a concrete floor and ceiling that was 12-15 feet thick, exterior walls were 10 feet thick with 4 feet thick interior walls. There were guns at each end. The building was decommissioned in 1947. The building was divided into three lots and sold. The owners dug away earth on the side facing the ocean and blasted a 25-foot hole in the structure to creature a door and windows. Plumbing, light and heat were added along with a basketball court on the roof.

**Picture taken on Brownwell Avenue at 32.7705137**, **-79.816457 looking away from the ocean.**

**Close up view picture taken from the street.**

Breach Inlet area- the Hunley would have passed along the inland side of the island from its dock and through Breach inlet. There was no bridge here during the Civil War to what was then known as Long Island (Isle of Palms). The Hunley would leave as the tide was going out to take advantage of the rapid currents in the inlet to sling shot it out into the Atlantic Ocean.

**Bridge runs from Sullivan’s Island to Long Island (Isle of Palms)- the Hunley passed through here on the evening of February 17, 1864.**

View from the bridge of Breach Inlet of the ocean

**Turbulent waters off shore in the ocean**

**Turbulent waters off shore on the horizon to the left of center are two ships in the area where South Atlantic Blockading Squadron ships would have been located.**

Stop 3- Boone Hall Plantation- 1235 Long Point Road. The land around the plantation was granted to Major John Boone in 1681. In 1743 the Live Oak Trees were planted at the entrance. It remained in the Boone family until 1811 when it was sold to John and Henry Horlbeck. By 1850 it was one of the leading cotton producing plantations in the area. It produced bricks for Fort Sumter. During the war earthworks were constructed on the property (part of the Christ Church line). The current house on the property was built in 1935. The exterior of Boone Hall was filmed as the Mount Royal Plantation from the ABC mini-series “North and South.”

Some markers in the slave cabins appear below.

The display below was in the cotton gin museum

**The Christ Church Line of earthworks**

The Christ Church line did run through the Boone Hall property and parts of it can be seen on the tractor/tram tour. They first become visible at 32.8487939, -79.8167467 where the potential earthworks are near a drainage ditch. I sat on the left side of the tractor when facing the back. At one point in time Civil War reenactments were carried out on the property and there is a tower on the property that was used during them.