The Northeast Angle of Fort Marshall

Two guns at the northeast angle of Fort Marshall on Sullivan's Island: a field piece standing on a plank platform in the foreground, and a heavy gun on its barbette carriage beyond, trained out over the water. Between them rises the sodded slope of a magazine traverse with implement staffs leaning against it, a ladder against the earthwork, and an implement chest set into the parapet.

The two together are a fair summary of what a Confederate island work had to be able to do: the heavy gun to reach the channel, and the field piece to meet anything that landed. The planking underfoot is the same solution seen in works all around this harbor — a gun platform that would not let recoil bury the wheels in sand.

The photograph is one half of a stereograph; its companion negative is filed with it. No date is given, and the fort's armament at the time of the view has not been established from any record consulted here.