“The Battery” at White Point Gardens - Then and Now

May 22

“The Battery” at White Point Garden at Sunset. The Dahlgren (left), the two Columbiads, the Brooke, and at least two of the mortars are visible in this photo. Photographed in October 2023 by the author.

War-time photograph of “The Battery”. At left is an 11-inch Dahlgren recovered from USS Keokuk. The two other cannons are 10-inch Columbiads. Note, the three cannon pictured here are thought to have all been sold for scrap. Around 1900 three similar cannon (including the other 11-inch Dahlgren from USS Keokuk) were brought from Fort Moultrie for display at White Point Garden. National Archives photo no. 165-C-799.

Other posts about White Point Garden on this Site.

The Library of Congress holds a number of early 20th Century (Circa 1900-1915) photos of White Point Battery on their website. Comparing these photos with more recent ones helps answer a few questions that visitors to this park may have, such as:

Were these cannon mounted here during the Civil War?
Why are the cannon mounted on wrought iron US Army Carriages?
Why are two of the cannon mounted on relatively complete front-pintle barbette carriages while two others sit only on the upper portion of the carriage?
Why are there stacks of 10-inch cannon balls sitting next to 13-inch mortars?

No, these particular cannon were not mounted here during the war - those appear to have all been scrapped… or at least sold for scrap and possibly lost at sea. However, those who created the display seem to have intentionally picked very similar cannon to represent them. War-time photos show one of the 11-inch Dahlgrens from USS Keokuk and two 10-inch Columbiads. Around 1900, the City of Charleston moved cannons from Fort Moultrie to White Point Garden, re-creating a more peaceful version of the war-time “Battery”. The cannon now present at White Point Garden are the other USS Keokuk 11-inch Dahlgren which had been placed near Fort Moultrie during the war, two 10-inch Columbiads produced in Virginia during the war which also came from Fort Moultrie, four US Army Model 1861 13-inch Mortars which were placed by the US Army at Fort Moultrie in the 1870s, and a 7-inch Brooke Rifle (S-76) which had been cast at Selma in 1864 and sent to Charleston. Other cannon from before and after the American Civil War have since been placed at White Point Garden.

Warren Ripley in “Artillery and Ammunition of the Civil War” identifies these carriages as “US Carriage, Seacoast, Front Pintle, Barbette, Model 1859, Wrought Iron” (Ripley pg. 206). My guess is that the cannon are mounted on wrought iron US Army Carriages because those were what was available in 1900 at Fort Moultrie. (It is my assumption that since the cannon came from Moultrie the carriages did, too.) While the cannon would have been mounted on wooden carriages during the war, by 1900 those carriages had long since rotted away. However, the US Army had brought wrought-iron carriages to mount the Rodman and Parrott cannons used to rearm Fort Moultrie and Fort Sumter in the 1870s. Judging that there are two 10-inch Rodmans and a 8-inch Parrott sitting on the ground at Fort Moultrie today, it is not hard to imagine Charlestonians of 1900 taking the carriages out from under the Federal barrels to mount their Southern artillery for display. The Brooke would have required a Model 1859 carriage made for an 8-inch Rodman (or 6.4-inch Parrott).

All four cannon were originally mounted on complete carriages as the photos show. Along the way, two of the cannon lost the bottom portion of the carriage. This may have happened due to damage sustained during the August of 1911 Hurricane. Or it may have happened when the cannon were moved across the street to allow for automobile traffic on East Bay Street and South Battery. At some point the Brooke was moved to face to the south rather than to the east.

The fact that there are 10-inch cannonballs sitting next to 13-inch mortars is a detail that is likely to be missed most casual observers. (I have even overheard a tourist wondering what “that pyramid thing is” not realizing that they were stacks of shot.) If you look at the photos, you will notice that the pyramids of 10-inch shot were originally placed alongside the 10-inch Columbiads.