John Rutledge, recently elected president of the…

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.