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
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!
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.
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.
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.
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| 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.
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| Downtown Charleston from the helicopter |
