WILLIAM MOULTRIE. French war, with its border Indian conflicts, inuring the body to hardships, and practising wit and intellect in cunning military devices, while it imparted confidence, grew the soldiers who were to cope with the trained warriors of the old world. "The best part of courage," says Emerson, somewhere, "is having done the thing before." The truth of the aphorism is abundantly shown. in the war of the Revolution, when the old military men brought to the service the skill and resolution of their former valor. THIS distinguished major-general of the Revolution was one of the earliest, as well as ablest supporters of the popular cause. Born, according to some accounts, in England, about the year 1730, he was brought to South Carolina at an early age, and is first heard of on the page of history in that period of the Seven Years' War, when the colony became entangled in that vexatious and formidable contest with the Cherokees, destined to develop so much of the military talent of her sons. Moultrie, then in early manhood, appeared in arms, especially distinguishing himself So Moultrie, with Laurens, Marion, in the adventurous closing campaign and others, was ready to unsheathe marked by the bloody field of Etchoee, his sword at the first note of warnwhere Marion, a lieutenant under his command, gained his first brilliant laurels, at the head of a forlorn hope, in charging the well chosen, strongly defended Indian position. "General Marion and myself," says Moultrie, in his "Memoirs of the Revolution in the South," when he has occasion to speak of the subsequent partisan service of that military chieftain, "entered the field of Mars together in an expedition against the Cherokee Indians, under the command of Colonel James Grant, in 1761; when I had the honor to command a light infantry company, in a provincial regiment." Out of that old ing from Massachusetts. In that me morable Provincial Congress of South Carolina, which met at Charleston, in January, 1775, assembling so much of the worth of the province, that body, whose roll includes so many honorable names-Rutledge, Pinckney, Laurens, Huger, Legaré, Gadsden, Middleton, Marion, Lowndes, and a host of others— Colonel William Moultrie was present as a delegate from the parish of St. Helena. In the war measures which ensued, he was chosen colonel of the second regiment of infantry, and employed himself diligently in the collec tion of ammunition and the erection of batteries at advantageous points, for rapidly built by a force of mechanics the protection of Charleston. Posses- and negro laborers, in view of a threatsion was taken of Fort Johnson, on ened naval expedition from New York. James' Island, and this advantageous The material of which it was position commanding the harbor on the structed was admirably adapted for south, was supported by a neighboring purposes of defence, consisting of logs camp and battery. A flag being need- of the palmetto, a wood of a peculiarly ed for purposes of signals, Moultrie spongy character, capable of receiving devised one, "the first American flag a shot without a fracture. In April, displayed in South Carolina." The General Armstrong arrived from the color was blue, adopted from the cloth-north, followed on the fourth of June ing of the State troops, with a crescent by General Charles Lee, who was put in the dexter corner, taken from a in command, and from whom everybadge worn in their caps by two regi- thing was expected. One of Lee's first ments who garrisoned the fort. After employments, of course, was to visit the this position was secured, the mainte- harbor defences, which, under the milinance of Sullivan's Island, in front of tary officers of the committee of safety the town, commanding the seaward had assumed very respectable propor approaches to the harbor, was to be tions. looked after. This was partly sepa rated from the mainland by a cove which it was necessary to keep open from the enemy, and for this purpose a battery was erected by Moultrie at Haddrell's Point, an advantageous position on the shore commanding the bay. Moultrie himself directed the military'slaughter pen,' and wished to with party, including "a great many gentle man volunteers," who, on "a dark and very cold" December night, executed this work in the face of two British vessels in the port. The latter then drew off, but the arrival of others off the bar, kept the defenders in a wholesome state of agitation. All this while Moultrie had the chief military command. In February, Colonel Gadsden, of the first regiment, arrived, and entered upon his duties, and on the second of March, Moultrie was ordered to take command of the fort in process of erection on Sullivan's Island. It was being When he came to Sullivan's Island, where he found Moultrie with his fort well advanced, he, says the latter officer in his "Memoirs," "did not like the post at all, saying that there was no way to retreat, that the garrison would be sacrificed; nay, he called it a draw the garrison and give up the post, of it, and a good historian may, very likely, find more to applaud in the one than to condemn in the other. The position of the defenders, indeed, looked desperate enough. On the morning of June 28th; a few days before the Declaration of Independence by Congress, the enemy, hav ing been reinforced by another fiftygun ship, the Experiment, the actual attack commenced from the chief vessels of the squadron. Moultrie, who was at the east end of the island, visiting Thompson's encampment, saw the first signs of the movement, and hastened to his post. To meet the seemingly overwhelming force of the enemy, within easy range to the south, he had four hundred and thirty-five men, all told. The fortification had thirty-one guns, but the supply of powder, the ridiculous defect of the early battles of the war, was short. There were but twenty-eight rounds for twenty-six cannon. him to the necessity of a retreat." He accordingly, armed with the authority of Rutledge, held the position in preparation for the coming invasion. The British forces, indeed, were already in the vicinity. A fleet of some forty or fifty vessels, ships of war and transports, under the command of Sir Peter Parker, bringing seven regiments, with Sir Henry Clinton at their head, arrived off the harbor on the fourth, and were now making preparations for the assault. Clinton being disadvantageously posted with his troops on the neighboring Long Island, the main attack was left to Sir Peter Parker, who advanced to the work with his formidable fleet. He had with him his flagship, the Bristol, fifty guns, four ships of twenty-eight guns each, one of twenty, another of eighteen, with various subordinate vessels-a sufficient force it might have been thought, with out over confidence, to cope with a log fort, manned by unpractised soldiers, unused to any weapon heavier than a The action commenced with a disrifle. Indeed, it was generally expected charge of shells, which produced little by the British, that a discharge or two effect, some falling short, others being of a broadside would destroy the fort, buried in the sand. The cannonading and the admiral, besides, had his men then began, the flag-ship and three of practised in entering embrasures-a the heavier vessels pouring their broadservice they were not called upon to sides into the fort at a distance of about perform. While such was the confi- three hundred and fifty yards. The dence of the foe, there were not want- sailors were doubtless astonished at the ing those on shore who doubted of the inadequate result; the balls hitting the result. If Moultrie had the least hesi- mark, indeed, but sinking, as they tation in his breast, he would have struck, harmlessly imbedded in the soft found a welcome for his timidity in the palmetto. On the other hand, the fire counsel of his superior officer, the gal- they received told with fearful empha lant major-general. It may not be, sis. Carefully husbanding his scanty however, that Lee was so much behind ammunition, Moultrie, coolly smoking the occasion as Moultrie was in advance his pipe, directed his men, who were |