Built in 1862–63 to defend Winyah Bay on the South Carolina coast, the battery was strongly situated and constructed; however, it was inadequately manned, and was captured without resistance during the final months of the war.

Even before the outbreak of the Civil War, the secessionist government of South Carolina was concerned with the possibility of attack by sea in Georgetown County.

Shortly after the December 20, 1860, passage of the Ordinance of Secession,[3] an aide-de-camp to governor Francis Pickens urged Lowcountry planters to "aid in the erection of Batteries to protect and defend the entrance of Winyah Bay and the Santee River".

The Federal capture of Port Royal in November 1861 lent urgency to the construction and improvement of these works, which was done under Robert E. Lee, the newly appointed commander of the Department of South Carolina, Georgia, and East Florida, with Colonel Arthur Middleton Manigault in charge of the district that included Georgetown and Horry counties.

[19] Settled on North Island, these freed slaves formed the nucleus of a colony of "contrabands" that grew to more than a thousand before being removed to Port Royal for fear of Confederate raids leading to their recapture or massacre.

Rice production in particular suffered, since it depended on a labor force of skilled slaves performing carefully timed tasks.

[23] Later in August 1862, Pemberton was promoted to lieutenant general and sent to the Department of Mississippi and East Louisiana, where he would eventually surrender Vicksburg.

[14][24][25] The new commander supported the fortification of Winyah Bay: on October 8, 1862, he assured Governor Pickens that he had ordered the construction of a battery of five or six pieces of artillery at Mayrant's Bluff;[26] on November 10, he wrote Colonel James Chesnut, Jr. that the battery was "armed and completed", and that he had sent a new regiment of the State Reserves to General James H. Trapier, in command of the Georgetown District.

He had also been given fairly light guns; what he wanted was Columbiads, suitable for defending the battery and the bay against incursions by ironclads.

The Second South Carolina Artillery, which had set up nine guns in the fortification, responded; and within a few minutes, the Federal vessels were forced to retire.

[29] In February 1863, Trapier reported that the Mayrant's Bluff fortification, now named Battery White, was occupied by only 53 men and nine guns.

They also reported that there were ten guns at the battery; the captain of Potomska concluded that the bay was too well defended for him to render aid to prospective deserters.

[33] In January and early February 1865, Union forces under General William Tecumseh Sherman moved northward from Georgia into South Carolina.

Eighteen mines had been constructed in Georgetown by Captain Thomas West Daggett and Stephen W. Rouquie and placed strategically in the bay.

[37] However, their efforts may have been perfunctory: according to Dahlgren's report, "...so much has been said in ridicule of torpedoes that very little precautions are deemed necessary, and if resorted to are probably taken with less care than if due weight was attached to the existence of these mischievous things.

En route, the vessel struck one of Daggett and Rouquie's mines, which blew a large hole in it, killing one sailor; the boat quickly sank in two and a half fathoms of water.

[45][46][47] For over a century after the Civil War, the grounds on which Battery White stood were part of the Belle Isle Plantation.

A 24-pound gun has been mounted in front of the National Guard Armory,[50] and two cannon are displayed in Constitution Park on the Georgetown waterfront.