Beauregard returned to Charleston in September 1862 to, once again, assume command of the Department of South Carolina and Georgia for the Confederacy. Headquartered in Charleston, he quickly began working on improving the defenses of the city. Brigadier General Thomas Jordan, Beauregard’s Chief of Staff, assigned Captain W. H. Echols, Chief Engineer, with the task to construct many of the new fortifications. On October 3, 1862, he ordered, “You will examine Hobcaw Point, on the Cooper River, in the vicinity of Mount Pleasant, to determine whether or not it will afford a good position for a battery.

Echols selected the site of a former fortification, Lempriere’s Point Battery, a Revolutionary War redoubt used from 1772—1783. The battery featured two 8-inch Columbiads on barbette carriages with a large powder magazine. In mid-October, Beauregard reported to the Adjutant General in Richmond that the new battery at Hobcaw Bluff was the best position to command the Cooper River, Wando River, and Town Creek.

The Hobcaw Point Battery is destroyed. There are some slight remnants of an earthwork fortification at Hobcaw Point. It is undetermined whether these remains are Revolutionary War, Civil War, or both.

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