The Guns of Fort Johnson

A dismounted gun lies muzzle-down in the sand of the foreground while two more stand in their emplacements along the parapet behind, men grouped at the far piece and the harbor opening out beyond.

It was a mortar at Fort Johnson that threw the first shell of the war — burst over Fort Sumter at half past four on the morning of 12 April 1861 — and the fort held out on James Island until the evacuation of February 1865. Foster's combined attempt to take it on 3 July 1864 was, in Johnson's judgment, the operation that came nearest to deciding the fate of Charleston, and it failed in the creeks.