Fort Moultrie, With a Question Mark

A heavy gun on its barbette carriage points across a deep sand cut; a United States flag flies from a tall staff beyond, with palmettos ranged along the far parapet. The Library of Congress titles the plate 'Fort Moultrie?' — and the question mark is the honest part of the record.

The catalog's doubt is carried through here rather than quietly resolved. The ground is consistent with the Sullivan's Island works, and the plate travels in the Moultrie run of the series; but consistency is not identification, and no feature in the frame settles it. If the fort in this photograph can ever be fixed by a document or by matching its earthworks against the certain views, the record here will say so — and until then it will not.