The city of Charleston in the colony of South Carolina is a center of commerce in southern North America.

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

Throughout 1775 and into 1776, militia recruits arrive in the city from the colony's back country, the city's manufacturers and tradesmen begin producing war materiel, and defensive fortifications begin to take shape around the city.

British army forces in North America are primarily tied up with the Siege of Boston.

Seeking bases of operations where they have more control, the British plan an expedition to the southern colonies.

Major General Henry Clinton, at this time in Boston, is to travel to Cape Fear, North Carolina, where he will join with largely Scottish Loyalists raised in the North Carolina backcountry, and a force of two thousand men from Ireland under the command of Major General Charles Cornwallis.

The plan had been beset by difficulties from the start.

The Irish expedition, originally supposed to depart at the beginning of December 1775, had been delayed by logistical difficulties, and its twenty-five hundred troops do not depart until February 13, 1776, escorted by eleven warships under the command of Admiral Sir Peter Parker.

Henry Clinton, having left Boston on January 20 with two companies of light infantry, had first stopped at New York City to confer with William Tryon, New York's royal governor.

Major General Charles Lee, sent by Major General George Washington to see to the defense of New York, had coincidentally arrived there the same day as Clinton.

New York is at this time extremely tense; Patriot forces are beginning to disarm and evict Loyalists, and the British fleet anchored there is having difficulty acquiring provisions.

Despite this, Clinton makes no secret that his final target is in the south.

Lee observes that this is "certainly a droll way of proceeding; to communicate his full plan to the enemy is too novel to be credited."

This is not even the first notice of the expedition to the colonists; a letter intercepted in December had already provided intelligence that the British were planning to go to the South.

John Rutledge, recently elected president of the General Assembly that remains as the backbone of South Carolina's revolutionary government, has organized a defense force under the command of forty-six-year-old Colonel William Moultrie, a former militiaman and Indian fighter.

These forces comprise three infantry regiments, two rifle regiments, and a small artillery regiment; they are augmented by three independent artillery companies, and the total force numbers about two thousand.

These forces are further augmented by the arrival of Continental regiments from North Carolina and Virginia (nineteen hundred troops), as well as militia numbering twenty-seven hundred from Charleston and the surrounding back country.

Moultrie sees Sullivan's Island, a sandy spit of land at the entrance to Charleston Harbor extending north about four miles (six point four kilometers) long and a few hundred yards wide, as a place well suited to build a fort that could protect the entrance from intruding enemy warships.

A large vessel sailing into Charleston first has to cross Charleston Bar, a series of submerged shoals lying about eight miles (thirteen kilometers) southeast of the city, then pass by the southern end of Sullivan's Island as it enters the channel to the inner harbor.

Later it will also have to pass the northern end of James Island, where Fort Johnson commands the southeastern approach to the city.

Moultrie and his 2nd South Carolina Regiment arrive on Sullivan's Island in March 1776, and begin construction of a fortress built out of palmetto logs to defend the island and the channel into Charleston Harbor.

The construction moves slowly; Captain Peter Horry of the Patriot naval detachment describes the site as "an immense pen 500 feet long, and 16 feet wide, filled with sand to stop the shot".

The gun platforms are made of planks two inches thick and fastened with wooden spikes.

Clinton arrives at Cape Fear on March 12, expecting to find the European convoy already here.

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

Clinton also receives pleas for assistance from the royal governor of Georgia, James Wright, who had been arrested, then escaped to a navy ship.

Parker's fleet had had an extremely difficult crossing. Battered by storms and high seas, the first ships of the fleet did not arrive at Cape Fear until April 18, and Cornwallis had not not arrived until May 3.

After several weeks there, in which the British troops raid Patriot properties, Clinton, Cornwallis and Parker conclude hat Cape Fear is not a suitable base for further operations.

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 are sufficiently promising that the decision is made to go there.

The British fleet had weighed anchor at Cape Fear on May 31, and had arrived outside Charleston Harbor the next day.

Moultrie notices a British scout boat apparently looking for possible landing points on nearby Long Island (now known as the Isle of Palms), just a few hundred yards from Sullivan's Island; troops are consequently sent to occupy the northern end of Sullivan's.

By June 8, most of the British fleet have crossed the bar and anchored in Five Fathom Hole, an anchorage between the bar and the harbor entrance.

With the fort on Sullivan's Island only half complete, Admiral Parker expresses confidence that his warships will easily breach its walls.

Optimistically believing he will not even need Clinton's land forces, he writes to Clinton that after the fort's guns are knocked out, he will "land seamen and marines (which I have practiced for the purpose) under the guns" and that they can "keep possession till you send as many troops as you think proper".

The British fleet is composed of nine man-of-war ships: the flagship fifty-gun Bristol, as well as the fifty-gun Experiment and frigates Actaeon, Active, Solebay, Siren, Sphinx, Friendship and the bomb vessel Thunder, in total mounting nearly three hundred cannon.

The army forces in the expedition consist of the 15th, 28th, 33rd, 37th, 54th, and 57th Regiments of Foot, and part of the 46th.

On June 7, Clinton had issued a proclamation calling on the rebel colonists to lay down their arms.

However, the inexperienced defenders had fired on the boat sent to deliver it (which was flying a truce flag), and it is not delivered until the next day.

That same day, Clinton begins landing twenty-two hundred troops on Long Island.

The intent is that these troops will wade across the channel (now known as Breach Inlet) between Long and Sullivan's, which the British believe to be sufficiently shallow to do so, while the fleet bombards Fort Sullivan.

General Lee responds to the British landing with several actions.

He begins reinforcing positions on the mainland in case the British are intending to launch an attack directly on Charleston.

He also attempts to build a bridge of boats to provide an avenue of retreat for the fort's garrison, but this fails because there ware not enough boats to bridge the roughly one mile (one point six kilometers) channel separating the island from Charleston; the unwillingness of Moultrie and Rutledge to support the effort may also have played a role.

The Americans also construct an entrenchment at the northern end of Sullivan's Island, which is manned by more than seven hundred and fifty men and three small cannons, and begin to fortify a guard post at Haddrell's Point on the mainland opposite Fort Sullivan.

General Clinton encounters the first major problem of the attack plan on June 17.

An attempt to wade the channel between the two islands establishes that part of the channel is at least shoulder-deep, too deep for troops to cross even without the prospect of enemy opposition.

He considers using boats to ferry the troops across, but the Americans, with timely advice from General Lee, adopts a strong defensive position that is virtually impossible to bombard from ships or the Long Island position.

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

Clinton reports that this means that Admiral Parker will have "the glory of being defeated alone."

The attack is originally planned for June 24, but bad weather and contrary wind conditions prompt Parker to call it off for several days.

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

Lee wrote from Wilmington on June 1 that the fleet had sailed, but that he did not know whether it was sailing for Virginia or South Carolina.

He had headed for Charleston, saying "[I] confess I know not whether I shall go to or from the enemy."

He arrives in Charleston shortly after the fleet anchors outside the harbor, and takes command of the city's defenses.

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

Some South Carolina troops resist his instructions, and Rutledge has to intervene by proclaiming Lee in command of all South Carolina forces.

Square-shaped Fort Sullivan consists only of the completed seaward wall, with walls made from palmetto logs twenty feet (six point one meters) high and sixteen feet (four point nine meters) wide.

The walls are filled with sand, and rise ten feet (three meters) above the wooden platforms on which the artillery are mounted.

A hastily erected palisade of thick planks helps guard the powder magazine and unfinished northern walls.

An assortment of thirty-one cannon, ranging from nine- and twelve-pounders to a few British eighteen-pounders and French twenty-six-pounders, dots the front and rear walls.

General Lee, when he sees its unfinished state, recommends abandoning the fort, calling it a "slaughter pen".

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

Moultrie's delaying tactics so anger Lee that he decides on June 27 that he will replace Moultrie; the battle begins the next day before he can do so.

Lee does make plans for an orderly retreat to Haddrell's Point.

Fort Sullivan is defended on the morning of June 28 by Colonel Moultrie, commanding the 2nd South Carolina Regiment and a company of the 4th South Carolina Artillery, numbering four hundred and thirty-five men.

At around 9:00 am this morning, a British ship fires a signal gun indicating all is ready for the attack.

Less than an hour later, nine warships sail into positions facing the fort.

Thunder and Friendship anchor about one and a half miles (two point four kilometers) from the fort while Parker takes Active, Bristol, Experiment and Solebay to a closer position about four hundred yards (three hundred and seventy meters) from Sullivan's Island, where they anchor facing broadside to the fort.

Each of these ships begins to fire upon the fort when it reaches its position, and the defenders return the fire.

Although many of Thunder's shots land in or near the fort, they have little effect.

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

Owing to shortage of gunpowder, Moultrie's men are deliberate in the pace of their gunfire, and only a few officers actually aim the cannons.

They also fire  in small volleys, four cannon at a time.

General Clinton begins movements to cross over to the northern end of Sullivan's Island.

Assisted by two sloops of war, the flotilla of longboats carrying his troops coms under fire from Colonel William Thomson's defenses.

Facing a withering barrage of grape shot and rifle fire, Clinton abandons the attempt.

Around noon the frigates Sphinx, Syren, and Actaeon are sent on a roundabout route, avoiding some shoals, to take a position from which they can enfilade the fort's main firing platform and also cover one of the main escape routes from the fort.

However, all three ships ground on an uncharted sandbar, and the riggings of Actaeon and Sphinx become entangled in the process.

The British managed to refloat Sphinx and Syren, but Acteon remains grounded, having moved too far onto the submerged sandbar.

Consequently, none of these ships reach its intended position, a piece of good fortune not lost on Colonel Moultrie.

At the fort, Moultrie orders his men to concentrate their fire on the two large man-of-war ships, Bristol and Experiment, which take hit after hit from the fort's guns.

Chain shot fired at Bristol eventually destroys much of her rigging and severely damages both the main- and mizzenmasts.

One round hits her quarterdeck, slightly wounding Parker in the knee and thigh.

The shot also tears off part of his britches, leaving his backside exposed.

By mid-afternoon, the defenders are running out of gunpowder, and their fire is briefly suspended.

However, Lee sends more ammunition and gunpowder over from the mainland, and the defenders resume firing at the British ships; Lee even briefly visits the fort late in the day.

Admiral Parker eventually seeks to destroy the fort's walls with persistent broadside cannonades.

This strategy fails due to the spongy nature of the palmetto wood used in its constructions; the structure quivers, and it absorbesthe cannonballs rather than splintering.

The exchange continues until around 9:00 pm, when darkness forces a cessation of hostilities, and the fleet finally withdraws out of range.

At one point during the battle, the flag Moultrie had designed and raised over the fort is shot down.

Sergeant William Jasper reportedly runs to the battlement and raises the flag again, holding it up and rallying the troops until a flag stand can be provided.

He is credited by Moultrie with reviving the troops' spirits, and later given commendations for bravery.

Counting casualties, Parker reports forty sailors killed and seventy-one wounded aboard Bristol, which has been hit more than seventy times with much damage to the hull, yards, and rigging.

Experiment is also badly damaged with twenty-three sailors killed and fifty-six wounded.

Active and Solebay reported fifteen casualties each.

The Americans report their casualties at only twelve killed and twenty-five wounded.