A Meeting Of Souls, Charleston's High Battery (1860, 1890, 1990)
by Madeline Carol

At the south end of the city is an area known as "The Battery". Here in this general area where the Cooper and the Ashley River flow together to form Charleston Harbor and the Atlantic Ocean, sat a point on the peninsula which was also known as White Point because oyster shells gathered there in such great numbers. They were used for everything from walkways to streets to building material in the fledgling port city of Charleston. Since its earliest days, this area or point also has been a meeting place for people. There were fortifications in the vicinity and batteries from the earliest times in Charleston history. Fort Broughton covered a part of the oyster point, and during the War of 1812 guns were mounted there. During the War between the States, Confederate earthworks were placed at the Battery.

Prior to 1800, the High Battery was a wall of palmetto logs topped with a walkway. By 1820 the stone wall of the High Battery was completed, with its early rock rip-rap being ballast stones from the shipping vessels which visited the port city. Approximately 6 or 7 years before the War Between the States, the wall was raised to about 5 feet above the street level. Around 1910 over forty acres of marsh was filled to the south, extending the Battery along what is now Murray Boulevard.

From its earliest beginnings as a gathering place for sea life to its later gathering place for the defense of the city, the Battery has always been a focal point of Charleston life. In 1861 citizens congregated on the roofs of the homes along the Battery to witness the first shots ofthe War Between the States. It has been a meeting place for Charlestonians to simply stroll, relax, and greet neighbors or as a place for one to stand and gaze into the harbor and ocean's horizon, enjoying the tranquility and beauty of the city while yet rendezvousing with that Charleston affinity for the water. Here on its walks Charlestonian's have met to be joined by the sounds of the clattering of passing carriages or the distant mumbling of voices or the splash of water on the foundations of the Battery walls. Here, with the smell of salt and wind in their faces Charlestonians can look at a gateway to the world with the backdrop of the past pressing against them like a cliff.

As more than a century and a half have come and gone, the Battery and the harbor have undergone changes. The homes have been slightly altered, and many of the carriages have been replaced by motorized vehicles of another time, though some tourist carriages dot its face. The view north is no longer one crowded with sailing masts and ships. The Cooper River Bridge now graces the skyline and the Omar Shrine Temple and the Carolina Yacht Club encompass part of what was once that view of ships to the north. Ladies in hoop dresses and gentlemen in their long coats and hats have been replaced by the citizens and visitors of today who stroll in leisure clothes and who take pictures to share the beauty of these memorable moments on Charleston's High Battery. Despite these changes the Battery continues to be not only a meeting place for the living but also a meeting place for the embodiment of the soul and spirit of a city whose past, present and future are so closely wedded to the harbor and the sea beyond. Here the light breezes lift one's spirit and cause one to remember when. Madeline Carol in yet another one of her extraordinary water color paintings recreates with definite detail and vivid impressionistic style how the Battery appeared to the citizens in 1860 to 1890. You can feel and see the serenity and calmness and formality that were Charleston in the months of 1860 before the War Between the States came rumbling into reality with the firing of guns on Fort Sumter, changing the face and peace of this lovely harbor. You can glimpse the optimism and the recovery from the War Between the States as Charleston closes in on the 20th century. Capturing the quiet beauty of these moments and expressing this in a warm portrayal of impressionistic colors, Madeline recreates the past while giving the apparitions of the future so that you can see what the living of that time could not see, A Meeting of Souls -- a place where time has moved, yet can stop for the gazer with some imagination. In this exceptional painting of a past time, Madeline gives you apparitions of the Cooper River Bridge, the Carolina Yacht Club, the Omar Shrine Temple, and people of our time. In the fourth print of The Spirits of Charleston Series, Madeline creates the reality of the past meeting the spirit of the future, a view which Charlestonians have not only carried with them as they have faced both good and hard times but also a view of what the Battery has been and has meant to the people of the city by the sea, a timeless flow of the currents by the High Battery, A Meeting of Souls. Again, in "The Prints that keep on Remembering" you can not only gaze and remember when, but here you also can gaze and see what is to be.

Madeline Carol, Capturing the Spirits
Art Gallery