Aug15Art

The rural sketcher week 33 is to draw the same tree as we did on week 3 and 19... Palmetto trees don't change much during the course of a year... so I did this of the tree on our state flag. How about a bit of history on how the tree got on our state flag.? During the American Revolution, there were fears the British would attack Charleston. Construction of a fort to protect the city began on Sullivan’s Island. It was built with double walls of stacked palmetto logs and sand in between. When 11 British ships arrived on June 28, 1776, to assault the unfinished structure, an easy victory was expected. Instead, as Dr. Walter Edgar recounted, “The fort’s construction rendered the heavy fire… ineffective as cannon balls either bounced off the spongy logs or buried themselves harmlessly in the sand.” The British withdrew in disarray. The state flag at that time was just a cresent moon, in 1861 the Palmetto tree was added to the flag in remembrance of this battle.