Visiting Fort Sumter

This morning we boarded a boat to visit Fort Sumter - an island fort at the entrance to Charleston harbour built in the late 19th century where the first shots of the American Civil War were fired.

It was a pleasant trip - the sea breeze was very welcome on a warm and humid day and the views of Charleston from the water and historical narration from a National Parks ranger brought the story of the fort and the harbour alive.

In the distance we had views of Fort Moultrie on Sullivan's Island at the entrance to the harbour.  Probably less visited than Fort Sumter as no sea voyage required!

The Fort itself remained in service until after the Second World War and is now in quite a ruined state.  Much of the damage was originally caused by bombardment by Confederate troops when it was held by Union forces and then by Union bombardment trying to re-take it.   At that time as an army garrison it was home to army families, including children.

This is a model of how it originally looked.  Two storeys with a third, open gallery on the top.  Now just the bottom storey remains to be visited.   

That in itself is of historic significance - all the bricks were made locally by enslaved labor in Charleston brickworks.

The fort is built on a sandbar and hence it was quite a feat to build there at all.  Thousands of tons of stone had to be brought across from Charleston to create a solid platform on the sand for the brick foundations.

As the tide receded the Brown Pelicans joined the small gulls to trawl for rich pickings on the sandbar.

On the way back, David captured this shot of a pelican taking off  after diving for a fish.  They look ungainly but are effective divers!

Do you think David looks the part?

Some fairly ugly additions to the fort have been made in recent years but there is a small museum housed in the black buildings.

Just as an aside, all the time we have been in Charleston and particularly around the water we have seen many orange butterflies fluttering around.  We had thought that they were Monarchs as they should now be on their final Southern migration stage to Mexico for winter - they must be there for the end of October.

However, when we finally managed to see one of these butterflies up close in a Charleston park, it didn't look quite like a monarch, though similar.   The butterflies flying over the water therefore remain a mystery..