Gillmore wired the War Department that "Fort Sumter is a shapeless and harmless mass of ruin". Yet the Union army and navy had captured an important position at the mouth of Charleston Harbor and reduced its most formidable fortress to rubble. Place of the Siege of Charleston: City of Charleston, South Carolina, in the United States of America. The Confederates protected their own guns and bombproofs but exposed themselves to Union naval fire and in the end could only slow the Union trenches. The ground the Union sappers were digging through was shallow sand with a muddy base. Fort Wagner, part of the formidable Confederate defenses of Charleston Harbor, was built on Morris Island on the south edge of the bay. The firing resumed but on the 36th shot the Swamp Angel burst and was not replaced during the campaign. Lincoln gave way in the council, but took matters into his own hands by proposing terms for a capitulation to the British. Visit our dedicated Podcast page or visit Podbean below. During the fighting, the British lost 76 men killed and 189 wounded. On 8th May 1780, the British trenches were near to the American line on the Neck and the flooded ditch that fronted the American position was drained by a sap cut into the bank. Charleston in 1776 had withstood attack on Fort Sullivan (renamed Fort Moultrie because its Siege of Charleston, (1780) during the American Revolution, British land and sea campaign that cut off and forced the surrender of Charleston, S.C., the principal port city of the southern American colonies. The terms, which permitted the American troops to leave Charleston, were rejected by Clinton. Governor Routledge summoned the South Carolina militia for the garrison of Charleston, but they failed to meet the summons, claiming that there was a danger of small pox in Charleston. Battle of Long Island, August 27, 1776 (200) {367 [xxiii]} Beginning of successful British campaign to capture New York. The guns were removed from the American warships to augment the land defences. Several of these ships were purchased from Admiral D’Estaing before the French withdrew from Savannah. Lieutenant Charles Sellmer with a detachment of the 11th Maine Infantry was called in to man the 200-pound Parrott rifle now being referred to as the "Swamp Angel". In view of the increasing strength of Charleston’s defences, General Lincoln felt confident enough to draw into the city a significant number of the American troops available in the southern colonies. In the estuary, Forts Johnson and Moultrie were repaired and re-armed. Following the capture of Charleston, the British advanced through the rest of the colony of South Carolina in what became a ferocious civil war. During the month it had taken Clinton to advance, the Americans, under the direction of Governor Routledge, had worked frantically to build up the defences of the city, using a workforce of 600 slaves drafted from the neighbouring plantations. Following Dandy's attack Confederate engineers began working to strengthen the rifle pits, hoping to force the Union army into mounting another costly assault. In addition, there were 5,000 British seamen available from the fleet. At the southern end of Charleston, facing out to sea, a redoubt was built holding sixteen guns. [11] Beauregard scorned Gilmore for turning his guns on a civilian city and demanded an opportunity to evacuate citizens. By 19th April 1780, the British trenches had advanced to within 250 yards of the American line on the Neck. Keitt's replacement, General Johnson Hagood, made better use of sharpshooters and the few landward guns to impede the Union siege works upon the fort. Both sides were armed with muskets. A fleet of American ships defended Charleston Harbour, commanded by Commodore Whipple: Bricole (44 guns), Providence (32 guns), Boston (32 guns), Queen of France (28 guns), Aventure (26 guns), Truite (26 guns), Ranger (20 guns), General Lincoln (20 guns) and Notre Dame (16 guns). Conditions within the fort were becoming intolerable, and the garrison commander, Colonel Lawrence M. Keitt, informed General Beauregard that he now had only 400 men capable of defending the fort. Further fighting took place during the next night, with an American raid on the British siege lines, the British capturing a redoubt on Haddrell’s Point and Colonel Arbuthnot taking Fort Moultrie, whose garrison surrendered without a fight, in sharp contrast to the defence put up by their predecessors on 28th June 1776. The British rejected this proposal. A shell fragment struck Colonel Howell, wounding him severely in the head. British siege works on the Neck during the siege of Charleston April and May 1780 in the American Revolutionary War: Charleston lies in the distance; the American defensive line on the Neck is marked by the gun shots: the American ships lie in the mouth of the Cooper River in the middle left with the British ships in the background and in the entrance to the Ashley River on the right, The previous battle of the American Revolutionary War is the Siege of Savannah, The next battle of the American Revolutionary War is the Battle of Camden,