Fort Moultrie National Monument

Cannonballs bounced off the walls. That is not myth — that is what palmetto logs do under bombardment, and it is why the half-finished fort on Sullivan's Island held against a British fleet on June 28, 1776, and why South Carolina still calls itself the Palmetto State. The fort that William Moultrie defended that day was eventually captured, rebuilt, rebuilt again, and pounded below a sand hill during twenty months of Civil War bombardment — and still stands. The Department of Defense transferred it to the National Park Service, which now interprets it as part of Fort Sumter and Fort Moultrie National Historical Park.