In plan, Fort Moultrie was square, with a bastion at each angle.  In construction, the sides were palmetto logs, dovetailed and bolted together, laid in parallel rows, sixteen feet apart; the interspace being filled with sand.  At the time of the engagement, the south and west fronts were finished; the other fronts were only seven feet high, but surmounted by thick planks, to be tenable against escalade.  Thirty-one guns were in place, 18 and 9-pounders, of which twenty-one were on the south face, commanding the channel.  Within was a traverse running east and west, protecting the gunners from shots from the rear; but there was no such cover against enfilading fire, in case an enemy’s ship passed the fort and anchored above it.  “The general opinion before the action,” Moultrie says, “and especially among sailors, was that two frigates would be sufficient to knock the town about our ears, notwithstanding our batteries.”  Parker may have shared this impression, and it may account for his leisureliness.  When the action began, the garrison had but twenty-eight rounds for each of twenty-six cannon, but this deficiency was unknown to the British.

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Parker’s plan was that the two 50’s, Bristol and Experiment, and two 28-gun frigates, the Active and the Solebay, should engage the main front; while two frigates of the same class, the Actaeon and the Syren, with a 20-gun corvette, the Sphinx, should pass the fort, anchoring to the westward, up-channel, to protect the heavy vessels against fire-ships, as well as to enfilade the principal American battery.  The main attack was to be further supported by a bomb-vessel, the Thunder, accompanied by the armed transport Friendship, which were to take station to the southeast of the east bastion of the engaged front of the fort.  The order to weigh was given at 10.30 A.M., when the flood-tide had fairly made; and at 11.15 the Active, Bristol, Experiment, and Solebay, anchored in line ahead, in the order named, the Active to the eastward.  These ships seem to have taken their places skilfully without confusion, and their fire, which opened at once, was rapid, well-sustained, and well-directed; but their position suffered under the radical defect that, whether from actual lack of water, or only from fear of grounding, they were too far from the works to use grape effectively.  The sides of ships being much weaker than those of shore works, while their guns were much more numerous, the secret of success was to get near enough to beat down the hostile fire by a multitude of projectiles.  The bomb-vessel Thunder anchored in the situation assigned her; but her shells, though well aimed, were ineffective.  “Most of them fell within the fort,” Moultrie reported, “but we had a morass in the middle, which swallowed them instantly, and those that fell in the sand were immediately buried.”  During the action the mortar bed broke, disabling the piece.