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Page Three

Location 34, same as above, from a higher view.

Same location as above.  The group at the back (with Dr. Phelps in green), stands where the escape route (tunnel) ran from the fort to the creek. This is one of the mysteries of the battle, it appears the people within the fort could have escaped. The historical record reports that they left the fort and stole gun powder from the artillery battery to the southwest side of them and poured it along the southwest side of the fort.  Then, on the first day of the battle when the Yamasee militia got too close to the fort wall the Tuscarora threw torches down into the gun powder and burnt the attackers in the flash of gun powder. 

The Tuscarora within the Fort also built a second wall on the night of the second day of battle, and they brought the poles from outside the fort through the tunnel, they could of escaped again?  Dr. Phelps thinks that they thought other Tuscarora were coming to help. The tunnel was built with short logs (four feet tall) standing upright with logs laid across the tops and dirt piled on top so it didn’t show from the outside, The enemy walked over it. The second wall was built because the militia was digging two trenches to the wall on the east and southeast side.  Where the tunnels were expected to breech the wall the Tuscarora built fires with huge piles of embers inside the fort. When the wall was breeched they pushed the ambers into the trenches so the militia couldn’t fight from the trench and had to expose themselves to small arms fire.  But that was near the very end.

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