48. Battery Northwest


Battery Northwest was connected to the Coming’s Point Battery, and they seem to have been treated as two parts of the same fortification by Charleston’s defenders.

During March, 1780, John F. Grimké recorded orders regarding the Little Battery on Cummin’s Point (“another sentry to be posted at the magazine door”) as well as the Great Battery (“in case of action, Capt. Templeton's Company and the surgeon will repair to the Great Battery and his major with the invalids to the Little Battery on Cummin's Point.”)

The 1780 Clinton map shows the battery as Northwest Point, other British maps of the period label it West Point, and a French map (cited in DeSaussure’s “Account of the Siege of Charleston”) depicted it as “de la Pointe Nord Ouest.”

DeSaussure, Wilmot G. "An Account of the Siege of Charleston, South Carolina, in 1780." City of Charleston Yearbook, 1884.
"Order Book of John Faucheraud Grimké, August 1778-May 1780." South Carolina Historical Magazine 13-19 (1912-1920).




“Sketch of Operations Before Charlestown Copied from Sir Henry Clinton’s Map, 1780.” Courtesy of Alabama Maps http://alabamamaps.ua.edu
Battery Northwest.
 
Plan de la ville de Charlestown, de ses retranchements et du siege faits par les Anglois en 1780. American Memory, Library of Congress http://memory.loc.gov/
Battery Northwest, 1780.
 
C. Drie, Bird's Eye View of the City of Charleston, South Carolina. 1872. American Memory, Library of Congress http://memory.loc.gov/
Location of the Northwest Battery in 1872.