So, first it is important to know what a redoubt is, and that is “a temporary or supplementary fortification, typically square or polygonal and without flanking defenses”. It looked like a big square or polygonal pile of dirt that troops could stand behind for protection and it could look quite imposing. The interesting part of this story, at least for most people today, is that this small fort was where Ladson Road meets Dorchester Road in Summerville. Can you imagine a fort of built-up dirt in the parking lot where the Waffle House and Hardees is today?
According to Henry A.M. Smith, a noted local historian who wrote in 1915, “the writer has never been able to find any record of its construction, and it is only by tradition ascribed to the British. It resembles other redoubts constructed by the British at the time, especially one on the old Fair Lawn…at the head of Cooper River.” What remains of Fort Fair Lawn has recently been opened to public visitation and it is near the Berkeley County Museum in Moncks Corner.
While Henry Smith didn’t know exactly who built it, some people have taken the story a little further and think Hessian troops, German troops here with the British when they occupied Charleston in 1780, were the constructors of the redoubt. Among the troops here at the time was Johann Ewald, an officer in the Jaeger Corps, which is German for “hunter”. These troops were armed with short rifles and moved quickly, often acting as scouts and light infantry.
On March 25, 1780, he wrote that “at daybreak the outpost under Captain Hinrichs on the highway to Dorchester was alarmed by an enemy party. He sent several men through the wood lying before him on the right to fire a few shots in the flank of the enemy. A noncommissioned officer of the enemy [American] party, who ventured ahead beyond all daring, was shot in the belly and captured. I asked him why he behaved so rashly. -– ‘Sir, Colonel [William] Washington promised me that I would become an officer right away, if I could discover whether the Jaegers were supported by infantry and had cannon with them, because if not, he would try to harass the Jaegers.’ “He begged me to ask the surgeon whether his wound was mortal, and when he heard that it was, he lay quietly down like a brave man, clasping his hands, saying: ‘Well, then I die for my country and its just cause.’ “Captain Hinrichs handed him a glass of wine. He drank it down with relish and died like a man.”
While this skirmish probably didn’t take place at the site of the Ladson Road redoubt, it doesn’t lessen its sadness. So, as you wait in your car for a burger at Hardee’s or stop for a late-night Waffle House treat, take a moment and think of the soldiers of the Revolution who once walked the same ground. History is not far away in Dorchester County, it’s all around us.