In May, 1828, Poe enlisted in the army under the name of Edgar A. Perry,
and was assigned to Battery "H" of the First Artillery at Fort
Independence. In October his battery was ordered to Fort Moultrie,
Charleston, S.C. Poe spent a whole year on Sullivan's Island. Professor
C. Alphonso Smith, the well-known Poe authority, says, "So far as I
know, this was the only tropical background that Poe had ever seen."
That the susceptible nature of the young poet was vastly impressed by
the weirdness and melancholy scenery of the Carolina coast country,
there can be very little doubt. The dank tarns and funereal woodlands of
his landscapes, or at least the strong suggestion of them, may all be
found here, and the scene of _The Goldbug_ is definitely laid on
Sullivan's Island. Here are dim family vaults, and tracts of country in
which the House of Usher might well stand.
"Dim vales and shadowy floods
And cloudy-looking woods
Whose forms we can't discover,
From the tears that drip all over"
was written while Poe was in the army at Fort Moultrie, and appeared in
his second volume in 1829. There are later echoes.
"Around by lifting winds forgot
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie."