America 2015: Day Thirty-One (29 August 2015)

The cobblestone streets
The steeples looking down
On the Battery
The Topsails and the Clydesdales
Pulling people all around
The ocean breeze and the live oak trees
God, I'm gonna miss this town, but
You can have Charleston

                                                                                                        - Darius Rucker

Saturday 29 August

Our first stop of the day was another military-themed one: Patriot’s Point, which sits across the harbour in Mt Pleasant, and is home to the USS Yorktown aircraft carrier that saw a lot of action in the Pacific Theatre of World War two and was part of the mission to bring in the Apollo 8 astronauts; a battleship, the USS Laffey and a submarine, the USS Clamagore. In an effort to compare it to something back home, Patriot’s Point is kind of like the Maritime Museum in Sydney, only on a larger scale.

 

 

There’s nothing quite so mammoth as an aircraft carrier. It seems big from the flight deck – and it really is – it’s the levels underneath and everything they cram in to make the vessel just like a functioning city (albeit on a much smaller scale) that’s so impressive. There’s not much headroom, there’re trip hazards everywhere, and you wouldn’t want to be claustrophobic. I’m not usually one to worry

The best thing about Patriots Point? The helicopter ride that took us out over Charleston Harbour. Surprisingly cheap, we got to see all the forts, plenty of beaches, the neighbourhoods on the far side of the harbour where the rich, famous and influential live, and, of course, a great bird’s eye view of the famous old city itself. There are few things more exhilarating than a helicopter ride. If you ever get the chance, don’t pass it up!

 

So, anyone who knows me well knows that I love my history. I can’t get enough, particularly relating to the wars and American history. Lately, the Civil War has piqued my interest. The excellent trilogy of historical fiction – Gods and Generals, The Killer Angels and The Last Full Measure – brought to life so many important figures in the war including, Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant, and reading them made me want to see some of the important sites

I’ve seen Gettysburg in Pennsylvania and Antietam in Maryland, two of the bloodiest battles in American history, and Appomattox Court House in Virginia, where Robert E. Lee finally surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Ulysses S. Grant’s Federal Army. The fact that I’ve seen the sites of two major battles and where the war, at least in the east, came to an end, but not where the madness of the Civil War started always seemed strange to me, and so, visiting Charleston, the top thing on my list was to visit Fort Sumter. After lunch, I was able to tick that off my bucket list.

 

 

South Carolina was the first state to succeed from the Union, and so could be looked upon as being the centrepiece of the rebellion. There was a back and forth between the state’s governor and President James Buchanan, but the president refused to order the surrender of Fort Sumter, which was named for General Thomas Sumter, a local Revolutionary War hero.

Sitting in the middle of the vast Charleston Harbour, Fort Sumter (which we’d previously seen from the helicopter) was held by Federal troops under Major Robert Anderson, after they had abandoned the indefensible Fort Moultrie, taking some cannons with them and spiking the rest. That was seen as an act of war by the locals.

On Thursday April 11, 1861, Confederate General P.G.T “Pierre” Beauregard sent three aides to demand Anderson’s surrender, and when that suggestion was turned down, Beauregard authorised Colonel James Chestnut Jr. to decide whether the fort should be taken by force. As we now know, Chestnut eventually ordered the guns in Fort Johnson to open fire on the Union stronghold.

 

The first shots of a war that would last four bloody, destructive years, were fired on Fort Sumter at 4:30am on April 12, 1861, and the Confederate guns fired for thirty-four straight hours before Anderson eventually surrendered on April 14. No one was killed on either side, and Anderson was promoted to brigadier-general as a result of his actions.

These days, Fort Sumter – like so many other Civil War sites – is a hugely popular national park destination, immaculately maintained and restored (aside from the casing for new batteries installed in the early 1900s) to how the fort looked back in 1865 when it was the focal point of a nation divided. The walls aren’t as high as they were four years before that, after so much bombardment, first by the Confederates on Anderson’s men and then by Union forces later in the war.

Fort Sumter from the helicopter

 

Sumter is accessible only by ferry, run by a private tour company with blessing from the National Parks department in the same vein as the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island ferries in New York City. It’s a pleasant thirty-minute cruise out to the mouth of the harbour, with a very interesting narration there and back. You have about an hour to look around the fort before the return trip. The museum is fascinating, but the entire place is like being in a museum. It was a very fascinating few hours.

Downtown Charleston from the helicopter