Defending Charleston 1861-1865

The 1st South Carolina Artillery Battalion occupied Fort Moultrie for the Confederacy in December, 1860, and fire from Fort Moultrie helped force the surrender of Fort Sumter in April, 1861. Shortly before the Civil War, rifled artillery changed coast defense drastically because rifled guns shot harder, farther, and more accurately than smoothbore cannon and could demolish masonry forts such as Moultrie and Sumter; Union rifled guns pounded Sumter to rubble in 1863. To cope with rifled guns, the Confederates turned Fort Moultrie into a massive earthwork to protect their own heavy rifles and smoothbores. To meet the threat of Union ironclad fleets, General Beauregard ordered captured smoothbores to be rifled and banded, firing solid iron bolts intended to pierce armor plating, and when the war began Fort Moultrie was armed with 32-pounder smoothbores and light 8-inch columbiads, including two 32-pounders mounted on Mordecai front pintle carriages that allowed 180° rotation. In an age when rifled artillery was not considered totally perfected, smoothbore guns were still used, and artillery at Fort Moultrie during the Civil War ranged from a 32-pounder firing a 32-pound shot 1900 yards, to an 8-inch Columbiad rifled and banded firing a 157-pound bolt 4000 yards, to a 10-inch Columbiad firing a 123-pound shot 5600 yards.

Sullivan's Island, South Carolina · United States