“C” is for Citadel, The

“C” is for Citadel, The. The Citadel originated in 1822 as an arsenal and guard house. In 1842 the General Assembly created the South Carolina Military Academy. Like other southern states, South Carolina believed military education would instill education, discipline, character, and patriotic devotion in its young men. During the Civil War Citadel cadets helped shore up defenses around Charleston harbor and from Morris Island fired cannon shots at the Star of the West as it steamed to supply the United States Army garrison at Fort Sumter. The institution remained closed after the war but reopened in October 1882. In 1922 the old Citadel on Marion Square was abandoned for a new one-hundred acre campus on the Ashley River. In the twenty-first century there are some 2,300 undergraduate cadets and one thousand graduate students enrolled at The Citadel.