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[398] and anchored at about three miles from Fort Sulli-
Chap. LXVI.} 1776. June.
van. In Charleston, from which this movement was distinctly visible, all was action; on the wharfs, warehouses of great value were thrown down to give room for the fire of cannon and musketry from the lines along East Bay; intrenchments surrounded the town; the barricades, raised in the principal streets, were continued to the water; and arrow-headed embankments were projected upon the landing places. Negroes from the country took part in the labor; the hoe and the spade were in every citizen's hands, for all persons, without distinction, ‘labored with alacrity,’ some for the sake of example, some as the best way of being useful. Neither the noonday sun, nor the rain, which in that clime drops from the clouds in gushes, interrupted their toil.

On the eleventh the two regiments from North Carolina arrived. That same day Lee, being told that a bridge of retreat from Sullivan's Island to Haddrell's Point was impossible, and not being permitted by Rutledge to direct the total evacuation of the island, ordered Moultrie immediately to send four hundred of his men over to the continent; in his postscript he added: ‘Make up the detachment to five hundred.’ On the thirteenth he writes: ‘You will detach another hundred of men,’ to strengthen the corps on the other side of the creek. But the spirit of South Carolina had sympathy with Moultrie, and mechanics and negro laborers were sent down to complete his fort; yet hard as they toiled, it was not nearly finished before the action. On the twelfth the wind blew so violently that two ships which lay

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