Congress has appointed General Lee to command…

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.