Episode 74: Demilitarizing Urban Charleston, 1783–1789 - The Charleston Time Machine

For the first century of its existence, the urban landscape of Charleston was dominated by an evolving ring of fortifications designed to protect the city against potential invasion by Spanish, French, and later British forces. Our provincial legislature repeatedly devoted large sums of tax revenue for the construction and repair of walls, moats, bastions, and related works, resulting in what was undoubtedly the largest public works program in colonial South Carolina. Despite the impressive scale of this work, however, Charleston’s modern streetscape reveals scarcely any physical trace of those early fortifications. If the city once bristled with cannon, walls, moats, and drawbridges, how and when were such features scoured from the historical landscape?