From the historical site placard: Battle of Secessionville. The village, renamed Secessionville by early 1861, gave its name to the battle fought nearby on June 16, 1862, in which Confederate repulsed numerous Federal assaults on an earthwork built across from the peninsula and crush Union hopes for an early occupation of Charleston. A water battery overlooking the marsh to the northeast was one of the several earthworks built nearby in 1862 and 1863.