Charleston: Great Cities of American History Series

Charleston is one of the best built, handsomest, and most agreeable cities that I have ever seen. 

Marquis de Lafayette

This is the first of a series I am launching, in which we will explore not just great American cities but also historical ones.  
 
 

Transcript

Charleston: Great Cities of American History Series

January 2026

By AD Tippet 

Charleston is one of the best built, handsomest, and most agreeable cities that I have ever seen. Marquis de Lafayette
 
 

Having never visited Charleston, South Carolina, my knowledge was limited.  I knew that was where the Confederates fired on Fort Sumter, igniting the American Civil War.  Through my Revolutionary War studies, I learned that Benjamin Lincoln’s surrender of over 5,000 Continentals to the British army under Cornwallis was a significant defeat.  But of Colonel Moultrie and the defeat of Sir Peter Parker’s Flotilla in 1776, its place in the slave trade, and the founding itself, my knowledge of Charleston was limited.  So, this past month, I undertook to correct that deficit with a personal visit. 

This is the first of a series I am launching, in which we will explore not just great American cities but also historical ones.  Not to demean places like Phoenix or San Jose, but my criteria is pretty simple: Cities that have played a historical role in the nation over 100 years ago.  This means Chicago is in, but Dallas is out.  

For this series, I will endeavor not to be so East Coast-focused, though I am beginning with one of those locations.  Given that our nation was born on the East Coast, such bias is a concern, but excluding the likes of Cleveland, St. Louis, or New Orleans would be deficient.  And with this intro, let’s learn about Charleston. 

Founded in the seventeenth century, Charleston has played a central role in colonial development, Atlantic trade, the institution of slavery, the American Revolution, the Civil War, and the economic and cultural transformation of the modern South.  The city was originally named Charles Town in 1670 to honor King Charles II of England, who granted the Carolina territory to his supporters; the name was shortened to Charleston after the American Revolution, around 1783. And if that wasn’t enough, the broader Carolina region itself was named in honor of King Charles I, Charles II’s father, who was executed by a group of Parliamentarians led by Oliver Cromwell.  Just be glad that today we do not have a North Cromwellian and a Southern version as well.  And to go full Captain Pedantic on you folks, Carolus is Charles in Latin, hence the Carolinas. 

The settlers in 1670 were English settlers from Barbados.  Originally established at Albemarle Point on the Ashley River, the settlement was relocated a decade later to the peninsula between the Ashley and Cooper Rivers, a location better suited for trade and defense. 

From its earliest years, Charleston was envisioned as a commercial hub. Its natural harbor—one of the finest on the Atlantic coast—made it an ideal port for trade with England, the Caribbean, and other colonies. A little geography here.  Charleston, SC, geography is defined by its coastal Lowcountry setting, situated on a flat, low-elevation peninsula at the confluence of the Ashley and Cooper Rivers, forming Charleston Harbor where they meet the Atlantic Ocean.  But before we get to these rivers, the sea islands are closing much of the harbor, with Fort Sumter Island square in the middle of the entrances to the city.   For sailing ships of the 17th century, looking for a place to settle in from Atlantic storms, Charleston must have seemed like an ideal location.  

Many early settlers brought with them plantation practices from the West Indies, including a reliance on enslaved African labor. This would shape Charleston’s economy and social structure for generations.

The early colony faced constant threats, including attacks from Spanish forces operating out of Florida and other places, piracy, and conflict with Native American tribes. Despite these challenges, Charleston grew steadily, benefiting from English mercantilist policies that encouraged the export of raw materials to the mother country. By the early eighteenth century, it had become the most prominent and wealthiest city south of Philadelphia.

Charleston’s prosperity in the eighteenth century was built mainly on plantation agriculture and slavery. Rice and indigo became the colony’s most profitable exports, cultivated on plantations in the surrounding low country using the labor and expertise of 

Many slaves came from rice-growing regions of West Africa, where the Africans themselves would enslave other Africans for sale to Europeans.  These slaves brought agricultural knowledge that proved essential to the success of the rice economy.

By the mid-eighteenth century, enslaved Africans and African Americans constituted a majority of the population in Charleston and its hinterland. The city became a major point of entry for enslaved people, with nearly half of all Africans brought to British North America passing through the port of Charleston. This demographic reality profoundly influenced the city’s culture, language, religion, and traditions, leaving a lasting African American imprint that remains evident today.

Similar to many Southern cities, Charleston developed a rigid social hierarchy dominated by wealthy white planters and merchants. The town also became a center of political influence, with local elites exerting significant control over colonial governance. At the same time, the constant fear of slave revolts—exemplified by events such as the Stono Rebellion of 1739—shaped laws, policing, and racial attitudes.

Charleston played a significant role in the American Revolution. Initially, many of its elites were divided between loyalty to Britain and support for independence, mainly over concerns about economic disruption and the control of slavery. However, as tensions with Britain escalated, Charleston became a center of revolutionary activity in the South.  Prominent founders from Charleston included John Rutledge, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, Charles Pinckney, Pierce Butler, and Edward Rutledge.  

The city was the site of significant military action. In 1776, American forces successfully repelled a British naval attack, led by Sir Peter Parker (no relation to Spider Man) at Sullivan’s Island, an early and symbolic victory for the Patriot cause. On June 28, the British fleet attempted to force the entrance to Charleston Harbor.  Despite an overwhelming advantage in cannon, the British ships were unable to silence the guns in Fort Sullivan, commanded by Col. William Moultrie, even though the British had ten times as many cannon as the Patriots did.  The spongy consistency of the palmetto logs used in the fort’s construction absorbed much of the shock of the projectiles.  The sandy and swampy terrain around Fort Sullivan also mitigated any severe damage by naval gunfire.  The American guns, meanwhile, damaged many British ships. Moultrie’s decision to concentrate firepower on the British flagship resulted in significant damage and injured Parker.  

Just an aside, Parker would go onto to hang his flag as Admiral, was made a Baron and became the senior admiral in the entire British navy.  

Despite the failure to suppress the American defenders in Fort Sullivan, three British ships still attempted to force the passage through the harbor.  All three ran aground on a shoal in the harbor entrance.  The crews were able to save two ships, but the crew of the third could not get it unstuck.  Unable to force entrance into the harbor and taking significant damage as night fell, the British commanders ordered the one ship still aground burned to prevent capture, and recovered the forces that had been landed north of Sullivan’s Island.  The British fleet withdrew and sailed north.  Clinton’s command would soon support the successful British campaign to capture New York City, but its attempt to capture Charleston had failed.

The National Park site of Fort Moultrie, now a small but worthy Museum, features a 13-minute video on the battle.  This video is also available on YouTube.  I should note the museum really covers the entire history of the Fort Sullivan/Fort Moultrie site, with weapons on display dating from the late 1800s to World War II, and one side note.  While walking in the battery section of Charleston, just east of the historic district, I imagined seeing a WWII aircraft carrier.  Not an illusion. The amazing USS Yorktown is in the harbor.  So got to Sullivan’s Harbor, then visited the aircraft carrier, which was 10 minutes away.  But I digress, back to the Revolutionary War in Charleston.  

Despite the impressive victory in 1776 over both the fleet and an amphibious landing, the British came back.  Following a stalemate in the Northern colonies, the British decided on a Southern strategy.  One of the impetuses for this belief was that sympathy for the British cause was expected to be much greater than in the North or the Middle Atlantic colonies. 

Charleston later fell to British forces in 1780. In December 1779, the British Commander-in-Chief in America, General Sir Henry Clinton, left New York City with a fleet of ninety troopships, fourteen warships, and more than 13,500 soldiers and sailors. Sailing for Savannah, Georgia, Clinton planned to rendezvous with a force commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Mark Prevost and march overland to Charleston, South Carolina. Defending the city was a grossly outnumbered American army under the command of General Benjamin Lincoln. 

By early April, the combined British forces had successfully trapped the Americans in the beleaguered city. By May 8, only a few yards separated the armies. Clinton demanded that Lincoln surrender unconditionally. The American general refused, so Clinton ordered the city bombarded with heated shot. As Charleston burned, Lincoln had no choice but to accept the inevitable.

The siege of Charleston finally came to a close on May 12, 1780. With General Lincoln’s surrender, an entire American army of roughly 5,000 men ceased to exist. The city remained under British occupation until 1782. 

Despite this setback, the war ultimately secured independence, and Charleston emerged from the Revolution with its economic and political importance intact. It briefly served as the capital of South Carolina before that designation was transferred to Columbia.

In the decades following independence, Charleston remained a leading port city and cultural center of the South. Cotton gradually replaced rice and indigo as the dominant export, further entrenching slavery as the foundation of the regional economy. Charleston’s merchants, shipowners, and planters prospered, and the city developed a refined cultural life, complete with theaters, libraries, and intellectual societies.

At the same time, Charleston became a focal point of pro-slavery ideology and states’ rights political thought. The city was a stronghold of Southern nationalism, producing influential advocates of nullification and secession. The Denmark Vesey conspiracy of 1822—an alleged planned slave uprising led by a free Black man—deepened white fears and resulted in harsher restrictions on both enslaved and free African Americans.

By the mid-nineteenth century, Charleston stood at the forefront of sectional conflict. Its political leaders increasingly viewed slavery as essential and non-negotiable, setting the stage for confrontation with the North.

Charleston occupies a unique place in Civil War history as the birthplace of the conflict. In December 1860, South Carolina became the first state to secede from the Union, and Charleston Harbor soon became the focal point of the crisis. On April 12, 1861, Confederate forces fired on Fort Sumter, initiating the Civil War.

Charleston did not find itself under constant attack until July 1863. Previously, the city had survived the sinking of a “Stone Fleet” (old whaling vessels sunk in the shipping channel as an obstruction in late 1861 and early 1862), a land attack directed against Secessionville in June 1862, and a naval assault against the harbor defenses by nine ironclads on April 7, 1863. The defeat of the separate army and navy attacks resulted in the formation of a combined naval and land assault led by General Quincy A. Gillmore and Rear Admiral John A. Dahlgren. On July 10, 1863, the date that Charleston newspapers declared as the start of the siege, Union troops stormed ashore and captured most of Morris Island, but they were stopped on July 11 and 18 from taking Battery Wagner. Gillmore undertook siege operations, forcing the evacuation of Wagner and Morris Island on September 7, 1863. Charleston remained under intermittent bombardment from August 1863 until its evacuation in February 1865.

The reason it took two years, despite being outgunned and outmanned, was the ingenuity of the defenders.  In October 1863, the Confederate torpedo boat David rammed the Union ironclad frigate New Ironsides. Early the following year, the H. L. Hunley carried out the world’s first successful submarine attack, sinking the USS Housatonic on February 17, 1864.

In February 1864, a Union advance on Johns Island under General Alexander Schimmelfennig failed. Early in July 1864, the city’s defenders turned back attacks under General J. P. Hatch against James and Johns Islands. 

The postwar period was one of profound upheaval. Enslaved people were emancipated, and African Americans briefly gained political rights and representation during Reconstruction. Charleston elected Black officials and experienced efforts to rebuild its economy and infrastructure.

However, Reconstruction was fiercely resisted by white elites. By the late nineteenth century, federal troops withdrew, and white Democrats regained control through intimidation, violence, and discriminatory laws. Segregation and disenfranchisement became entrenched under Jim Crow, reversing many of the gains African Americans had made.

Economically, Charleston entered a long period of decline, even by post-Bellum Southern standards. The city lagged behind other Southern ports that industrialized more rapidly, and repeated natural disasters, including earthquakes and hurricanes, further hindered recovery.

In the twentieth century, Charleston gradually reinvented itself. The establishment of military bases, including a significant naval base, spurred economic activity during World War II and the Cold War. At the same time, the city became a pioneer in historic preservation. Recognizing the value of its architectural heritage, Charleston enacted one of the nation’s first historic district ordinances in the 1930s.

The Civil Rights Movement brought renewed challenges and change—African American residents organized for desegregation and voting rights, confronting entrenched racial inequality. Over time, legal segregation ended, although economic and social disparities persisted.

Today, Charleston is known for its historic charm, tourism industry, culinary reputation, and cultural institutions. The city has experienced rapid growth, attracting new residents and investment while grappling with issues such as gentrification, affordability, and climate change vulnerability from rising sea levels. 

Charleston today has a population of 157,000, though its population peaked in the 1960s.  That should soon be eclipsed as new housing plans are implemented, which have led to a surge in recent years. Added to that, as more people retire in the Northern states, and usual retirement destinations such as Florida and Arizona become less desirable, the Carolinas have seen a surge.  South Carolina is increasingly popular and considered a top retirement destination due to its favorable tax laws (no Social Security/estate tax, income deductions), affordable cost of living, pleasant climate, rich history, beautiful scenery, and abundant recreational activities, making it a strong competitor to states like Florida. 

If you visit a few recommendations.  Go to Sullivan’s island you get two attractions, Fort Moultrie, a national Park, and though not directly related to Charleston, does anchor the Patriots Point Naval & Maritime Museum.  You get two sites for one drive.  

There is also a ferry out to Fort Sumter.  I liked the tour but it does require a time commitment.  

I would also tour the historic district at the point of the original harbor down to Battery Park.  This touring does take hours and you can see more locations that I can safely list here – everything ranging from colonial homes to antebellum mansions.  

Finally the Boone Hall Plantation House was worth the time.  I am leaving out about 20 attractions for the historian so recommend you construct your own tour, but if you go to Charleston, it is really a cannot miss experience for the history buff.  

Some of the new residents may learn the hard way that Charleston is basically on or under sea level and susceptible to flooding.  And there is heat, and there is Charleston heat.  But for history lovers, it is one of the great cities of our Republic.