The three vessels assigned to enfilade the main front of the fort did not get into position.  They ran on the middle ground, owing, Parker reported, to the ignorance of the pilots.  Two had fouled each other before striking.  Having taken the bottom on a rising tide, two floated in a few hours, and retreated; but the third, the Actaeon, 28, sticking fast, was set on fire and abandoned by her officers.  Before she blew up, the Americans boarded her, securing her colours, bell, and some other trophies.  “Had these ships effected their purpose,” Moultrie reported, “they would have driven us from our guns.”

The main division held its ground until long after nightfall, firing much of the time, but stopping at intervals.  After two hours it had been noted that the fort replied very slowly, which was attributed to its being overborne, instead of to the real cause, the necessity for sparing ammunition.  For the same reason it was entirely silent from 3.30 P.M. to 6, when fire was resumed from only two or three guns, whence Parker surmised that the rest had been dismounted.  The Americans were restrained throughout the engagement by the fear of exhausting entirely their scanty store.

“About 9 P.M.,” Parker reported, “being very dark, great part of our ammunition expended, the people fatigued, the tide of ebb almost done, no prospect from the eastward (that is, from the army), and no possibility of our being of any further service, I ordered the ships to withdraw to their former moorings.”  Besides the casualties among the crew, and severe damage to the hull, the Bristol’s mainmast, with nine cannon-balls in it, had to be shortened, while the mizzen-mast was condemned.  The injury to the frigates was immaterial, owing to the garrison’s neglecting them.

The fight in Charleston Harbour, the first serious contest in which ships took part in this war, resembles generically the battle of Bunker’s Hill, with which the regular land warfare had opened a year before.  Both illustrate the difficulty and danger of a front attack, without cover, upon a fortified position, and the advantage conferred even upon untrained men, if naturally cool, resolute, and intelligent, not only by the protection of a work, but also, it may be urged, by the recognition of a tangible line up to which to hold, and to abandon which means defeat, dishonour, and disaster.  It is much for untried men to recognise in their surroundings something which gives the unity of a common purpose, and thus the coherence which discipline imparts.  Although there was in Parker’s dispositions nothing open to serious criticism,—­nothing that can be ascribed to undervaluing his opponent,—­and although, also, he had good reason to expect from the army active cooeperation which he did not get, it is probable that he was very much surprised, not only at the tenacity of the Americans’ resistance, but at the efficacy of their fire.  He felt, doubtless, the traditional and natural distrust—­and,