'Battery' and see in the distance Fort Sumter and Fort Moultrie and other fortifications which, though often attacked, were never carried by storm, I begin to understand the wonderful spirit of this people. Charlestonians held this stronghold for four years against the most powerful fleet of war vessels ever seen up to that time on this hemisphere."
Disastrous fires have destroyed many of the
historic landmarks of the town, and the most
interesting public building still standing is the
Colonial Exchange, built in 1771, at a cost of
£41,470. In its basement Colonel Isaac Hayne
and other patriot prisoners were confined, and
here General Moultrie walled up one hundred
thousand pounds of gunpowder, which remained
undiscovered during the three years
that the British held the town. It was the
scene of a ball and public reception in honor of
General Washington when he visited Charleston
after the Revolution, and was used as the
Post-Office from 1783 until the construction of
the new granite Post-Office, in Italian Renaissance
style, during the last decade.
Of the first St. Philip's Church, built on the present site, Edmund Burke said that it "is spacious, and executed in a very handsome taste, exceeding everything of that kind which
