This four-gun Confederate artillery battery was one of several earthworks built on the southeastern shore of James Island in the summer of 1863. Built between Battery Simkins and Battery Haskell, it was named for Capt. Langdon Cheves, an engineer who designed Battery Wagner on Morris Island and was killed during the Federal assault there on July 10, 1863. The battery assisted in the defense of James and Morris Islands, and its armament in 1863 was four 8-inch smoothbore naval guns. A magazine explosion on September 15, 1863 killed five men and wounded two. Battery Cheves and the rest of Charleston’s defenses were evacuated February 17, 1865, and the battery was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.
