As we approach the 4th of July, the Historical Commission is using the pages of its Quick Fact Friday to focus on our Revolutionary history.
In February of 1780 a British force of over 12,000 landed near the Edisto and marched over Wadmalaw, Johns and James Islands to attack Charlestown. By April they had moved up the western bank of the Ashley River, crossed at Magnolia Plantation, and marched down Charlestown Neck to cut off the land approaches to the besieged Americans in the city. Before this invasion, in order to defend the harbor and also to ensure lines of communication and supply to the north, the Americans had built fortifications East of the Copper. The largest of these was Lempiere's Point Battery. Lempriere's Point was located at the mouth of the Wando River just below Hobcaw Point. The property was part of a plantation owned by Captain Clement Lempriere and was the location of Lempriere's Ferry, offering daily runs to and from Charlestown.
While the British kept digging their trenches closer to Charlestown's landward defenses, British cavalry under Colonel Banastre Tarleton defeated an American force at Monks Corner on April 13. Without hesitating Tarleton swung down through St. Thomas's Parish, crossed the head of the Wando at Wappetaw Bridge and camped within six miles of Lempiere's. While the British had effectively encircled the Americans, the East Cooper lines were still porous. The commanding American General, Benjamin Lincoln, wrote to the French officer, Colonel Francois Lellorquis, Marquis de Malmedy, commanding at Lempiere's: "I need not remind you that your post is critical and that the greatest precaution is necessary." By April 26, British General Cornwallis had followed Tarleton and arrived with a larger force which he marched through Mt. Pleasant to Hadrell's Point. Believing Lempiere's battery too strong to take and a threat to his rear, Cornwallis withdrew the same day to Christ Church. However, when Americans on patrol the next day encountered the British at the church, Malmedy assumed Cornwallis was preparing to attack him and, without orders, spiked his guns and retreated by boat to Charlestown. Cornwallis seized the abandoned fort and the Americans in Charleston lost their last route for supplies, reinforcements, or escape. On May 11, 1780, General Lincoln surrendered the city and its garrison in the largest American defeat of the war.
Image credit: Siege of Charleston, by Alonzo Chappel, c. 1862. Courtesy, Anne S.K. Brown Military Collection, Brown Library.
