The Church Act of 1706 created Christ Church Parish. The first church, a wooden structure built in 1707, accidentally burned in 1725. A brick church was erected in 1726, and although the British…

The Mount Pleasant Battery was a two-gun battery built at the end of present-day Schweers Lane, adjacent to Pitt Street. It was armed with two 10-inch seacoast mortars. From this vantage point, the…

General Robert E. Lee was sent to Charleston in early November 1861 to oversee the design and construction of defenses for the South Carolina coast and the cities of Charleston and Savannah. Lee and…

Fort Palmetto, a three-gun battery, was constructed at the eastern terminus of the Christ Church Lines. This strong fortification commanded both Hamlin Sound and Dewee’s Inlet. Dewee’s Inlet, located…

On August 18, 1863, as Beauregard and his staff sought to strengthen inner harbor defenses, Lieutenant Colonel D. B. Harris, Chief Engineer, was directed to construct a new battery for “heavy guns” at…

A two-gun battery was constructed in 1863 at Kinloch’s Landing, a ferry landing facing Sullivan’s Island. The battery was 2.16 miles northeast of Battery Gary. It was originally constructed with a…

Venning’s Landing Battery was located at another ferry landing 1.37 miles northeast of Kinloch’s Landing Battery on the southeast shore of Mount Pleasant facing Sullivan’s Island. Like Kinloch’s…

The Hibben Street Battery was located behind the Hibben House on a high bluff at the western terminus of Hibben Street in the Old Village of Mount Pleasant overlooking Charleston Harbor. The battery…

Early in the war, torpedoes (mines) were placed in the Hog Island Channel to defend against Union ships that might slip past Fort Sumter and Fort Moultrie. The Hog Island Battery, also known as the…

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…