Charleston County · Marker 10-34
Riversville
Eastern end of Fort Lamar Rd., James Island
Front inscription
Riversville, an antebellum village of fourteen acres, with seven lots on Savannah (later Secessionville) Creek, was established here in 1851 by Constant H. Rivers (1829-1910), who believed that the sandy soils and marsh breezes of James Island would protect inhabitants from the "malarious gases" common to the coast during the summer months.
Battle of Secessionville
The village, renamed Secessionville by early 1861, gave its name to the battle fought nearby on June 16, 1862, in which Confederates repulsed numerous Federal assaults on an earthwork built across the peninsula and crushed Union hopes for an early occupation of Charleston. A water battery overlooking the marsh to the northeast was one of several earthworks built here in 1862 and 1863.