"Every Picture Tells a Story ... Don't It:" An August Afternoon in Charleston, Part II | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Charleston's waterfront has always figured into the history of this former colonial city, as it continues to do so today. I could surely sense some of it on my day trip to Charleston, on that blazing hot day in August. I reported on a piece of this very old place in "Every Picture Tells a Story ... Don't It: Part I" An August Afternoon in Charleston, Part I. This treatise in images is the second piece of that story.

    Charleston has long been, loosely known, "as the "best-mannered city in the United States of America." I have to wonder how the Federal soldiers, in Fort Sumter, felt on that fated morning of April 12, 1861, when the shore batteries, located now, in part, in White Point Gardens at the tip of the Charleston Peninsula, opened fire on them in that storied fort, initiating the American Civil War. One has to question whether Louisianian General Pierre G. T. Beauregard, commanding the Confederate militia, understood that his actions would set into motion the chain of events that would lead to the deadliest war, by far, in the history of the United States.

    The afternoon of my visit to the port of Charleston was the same afternoon of a small regatta in Charleston Harbor. It was a hot, but breezy day (thank God), so the sailing craft got some good speed going in the choppy waters: Above.     image by Stan Deatherage
   Sweeping the camera right, we catch a glimpse of Fort Sumter deep in the background behind the image of the pleasure craft lifted by the power of the wind: Above. A shot of the historic fort by virtue of the telephoto capabilities of the old digital Sony: Below.     images by Stan Deatherage

    These period mortars, still located along the waterfront bulkhead in White Point Gardens, fired exploding shot and iron balls at the distant fort, but still within range of the ambitions of an angry Confederate Militia.     image by Stan Deatherage
    Click here for an enlarged view of eastern central South Carolina: Above.
    In this image along the waterfront, we notice the container ship in Charleston Harbor beginning its way up the Cooper River, where the port's docks are located: Above. Within White Point Gardens, underneath the spreading giant Live Oaks, is the quaint gazebo: Below.     image by Stan Deatherage


    Charleston as a port city is evolving into more of its status of being the consummate waterfront city. Peerless in North and South Carolina, as well as almost all of the eastern coast of the former colonial United States. Nothing compares, with the possible exception of Manhattan, which is quite different, but still spectacular. Charleston has the most elegant, period residential districts tucked in this peninsula town along its tree covered streets and cobbled alley ways that comprise the center of the city's historic district.

   We will examine many of these fine structures in some of the remaining images of this series as well as succeeding volumes on Charleston, South Carolina.