|
Sergeant William Jasper Replacing the Flag at Fort Moultrie, S,C,
Copy of oil painting by Frederick Coffay Yohn
From the private collection of The Continental Insurance Companies,
New York, N. Y.
On the morning of June 4, 1776, Sergeant William Jasper looked
out over the port at Charleston, S."... I Saw a number of the
enemy's boats in motion... I saw the men-of-war loose their topsails.
I hurried back to the fort."
Jasper and his men began furiously building defenses with the
only wood available - the spongy palmetto. A patriot general who
arrived to survey the unfinished fort dismissed it as a
"slaughter pen." But when the British opened fire on June
28, the palmetto swallowed the shot and held fast.
During the attach, the fort's flagstaff was broken by a cannon
ball. Sergeant Jasper bravely dashed out, rescued the colors, and
replaced them on the fort. Jasper returned unhurt, the hero of a
battle that forestalled a large scale British occupation of the South
for two years.
|
