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Carolina Day
Festivities Highlight
Revolutionary Impact
The Society of the Cincinnati in the State of South Carolina
Every year the South Carolina Society's summer meeting takes place on the anniversary of the Battle of Sullivan's Island. The patriot fort was located at the entrance to Charleston Harbor where elements of the Second and Third South Carolina Regiments, under the command of Colonels William Moultrie and William Thomson, repulsed a far greater British force on June 28, 1776, six
days before the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
This year's meeting started
on the evening of June 27, when Andy Morse, director of development for the Society
of the Cincinnati and the American Revolution Institute, hosted a public lecture at The Charleston Museum. After light refreshments, we heard from Dr. David Preston, Westvaco Professor of National Security Studies at The Citadel, about George Washington's enduring relevance to South Carolina and the nation. According to Executive Director Jack Warren,
this is the first time the American Revolution Institute held a lecture event promoting the memory of the American Revolution outside Washington, DC. We hope to include additional American Revolution Institute lectures in South Carolina during this triennium.
The next morning, after a church service, thirty-eight historical groups, including our Cincinnati, gathered in Washington Park. Aided by cooler temperatures and low humidity, the parade marched down Meeting Street to White Point Gardens. We listened to Jack Warren speak beneath the Jasper Monument, looking
out over the harbor toward the fort later renamed in General Moultrie's honor. In a stirring speech, Jack reminded the approximately 450 participants that before the arrival of the British fleet near Charleston
in June 1776, the American patriots had not yet defeated the British in a pitched battle. That changed after the patriot
victory that day, a victory that could not have been predicted considering the patriot forces had only 31 cannons to the British’s nearly three hundred.
Jack explained the improbability of the patriot victory over the most powerful navy of the day and the many ways it empowered and emboldened the patriot cause. “As news of the victory rippled out, it stirred the American imagination and emboldened patriots. It persuaded thousands that the improbable was possible—that determination, courage and ingenuity could overcome any obstacle. That has been, ever since, a defining part of the American spirit—shared by Americans of all regions,
by Americans of every class,
of all races, of both sexes.
We occasionally despair, but
we rarely surrender. The idea that we cannot overcome great challenges is alien to us. Like Sergeant Jasper—in many
ways the defining hero of our Revolution—we wave our flag
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Members of the Society of the Cincinnati walking in the 2019 Carolina Day Parade.