What will you find along The Battery?
The Battery is the seawall promenade that wraps around the southern tip of Charleston's peninsula, where the Ashley and Cooper rivers converge into the harbour. The name comes from the Confederate artillery batteries that were positioned here during the Civil War to defend the city, and several original cannon and mortar remain on display in White Point Garden, the tree-shaded park that occupies the point. On one side, a concrete seawall offers unobstructed views across the harbour to Fort Sumter and the barrier islands beyond. On the other, some of Charleston's most magnificent antebellum mansions line South Battery and East Battery streets -- three and four stories of Greek Revival columns, double piazzas, and ornamental ironwork representing the peak of pre-Civil War wealth in the American South.
Walking The Battery engages every direction. Look south across the water and you see the harbour that shaped four centuries of history -- the same waters crossed by colonial merchant ships, slave vessels, British warships, Confederate blockade runners, and Union ironclads. Turn inland and the mansions tell individual stories of cotton fortunes, wartime bombardment, earthquake survival, and generations of preservation. White Point Garden itself was the city's original public promenade and the site of pirate hangings in the colonial era, including the crew of the notorious Stede Bonnet in 1718. From sunrise to sunset, locals jog the seawall, tourists photograph the houses, and harbour breezes keep the air moving even in the thick of a Lowcountry summer.