Finding conditions unsuitable for their operations, General Henry Clinton and Admiral Sir Peter Parker decided instead to act against Charlestown.

The naval bombardment had little effect due to the sandy soil and the spongy nature of the fort's palmetto log construction.

When the American Revolutionary War broke out in 1775, the city of Charlestown, in the Province of South Carolina, was a center of commerce in southern North America.

The city's citizens joined other colonists in opposing the British parliament's attempts to tax them, and militia recruitment increased when word arrived of the April 1775 Battles of Lexington and Concord.

[10] New York was at that time extremely tense; Patriot forces were beginning to disarm and evict Loyalists, and the British fleet anchored there was having difficulty acquiring provisions.

He met with the royal governors of North and South Carolina, Josiah Martin and William Campbell, and learned that the recruited Scottish Loyalists had been defeated at Moore's Creek Bridge two weeks earlier.

[13] Clinton also received pleas for assistance from the Royal Governor of Georgia, James Wright, who had been arrested, and then escaped to a navy ship.

After several weeks there, in which the British troops raided Patriot properties, Clinton, Cornwallis and Parker concluded that Cape Fear was not a suitable base for further operations.

[15] Parker had sent out some ships on scouting expeditions up and down the coast, and reports on the partially finished condition of the Charleston defenses were sufficiently promising that the decision was made to go there.

[16] John Rutledge, recently elected president of the general assembly that remained as the backbone of South Carolina's revolutionary government, organized a defense force under the command of 46-year-old colonel, William Moultrie, a former militiaman and Indian fighter.

[19] These forces were further augmented by the arrival of Continental regiments from North Carolina and Virginia (1,900 troops), as well as militia numbering 2,700 from Charleston and the surrounding backcountry.

[23] Congress had appointed General Lee to command the Continental Army troops in the southern colonies, and his movements by land shadowed those of Clinton's fleet as it sailed south.

[15] He immediately ran into a problem: the South Carolina troops (militia or the colonial regiments) were not on the Continental line, and thus not formally under his authority.

[17] President Rutledge refused, and specifically ordered Colonel Moultrie to "obey [Lee] in everything, except in leaving Fort Sullivan".

[31] With the fort on Sullivan's Island only half complete, Admiral Parker expressed confidence that his warships would easily breach its walls.

[32] The British fleet was composed of nine man-of-war ships: the flagship 50-gun Bristol, as well as the 50-gun Experiment and frigates Actaeon, Active, Solebay, Siren, Sphinx, Friendship and the bomb vessel Thunder, in total mounting nearly 300 cannon.

[42] As a result, the British and American forces faced each other across the channel, engaging in occasional and largely inconsequential cannon fire at long range.

"[24] The attack was originally planned for June 24, but bad weather and contrary wind conditions prompted Parker to call it off for several days.

[48] Thunder's role in the action was also relatively short-lived; she had anchored too far away from the fort, and the overloading of her mortars with extra powder to increase their range eventually led to them breaking out of their mounts.

This strategy failed due to the spongy nature of the palmetto wood used in its constructions; the structure would quiver, and it absorbed the cannonballs rather than splintering.

Counting casualties, Parker reported 40 sailors killed and 71 wounded aboard Bristol, which was hit more than 70 times with much damage to the hull, yards, and rigging.

[1] The following morning, the British, unable to drag the grounded Acteon off the sandbar, set fire to the ship to prevent her from falling into enemy hands.

[60] Admiral Parker and General Clinton engaged in a war of words after the battle, each seeking to cast the blame on the other for the expedition's failures.

[61] Extensively modified in the years after the battle, it was supplanted by Fort Sumter as the principal defense of Charleston prior to the outbreak of the American Civil War.

Commissioned by the colonial government, he designed a blue flag with a white crescent in the top left corner, which was flown at the fort during the battle.

When Charleston (lost to the British in the 1780 siege) was reclaimed by American forces at the end of the war, the flag was returned to the city by General Nathanael Greene.

Each year local events include a parade in downtown Charleston and reenactments at Fort Moultrie on Sullivan's Island.