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Fort Sumter. April 12 th -14 th 1861. 1861 Model of Fort Sumter. Fort Sumter. Fort Sumter. Fort Sumter. Fort Sumter.
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Fort Sumter April 12th-14th 1861
Fort Sumter • When the Civil War finally exploded in Charleston Harbor, it was the result of a half-century of growing sectionalism. Escalating crises over property rights, human rights, states rights and constitutional rights divided the country as it expanded westward. Underlying all the economic, social and political rhetoric was the volatile question of slavery. Because its economic life had long depended on enslaved labor, South Carolina was the first state to secede when this way of life was threatened. Confederate forces fired the first shot in South Carolina, and the federal government responded with force.
April 12th 1861 • On April 8, Lincoln notified Gov. Francis Pickens of South Carolina that he would attempt to resupply the fort. The Confederate commander at Charleston, Gen.P.G.T. Beauregard, was ordered by the Confederate government to demand the evacuation of the fort and if refused, to force its evacuation. On April 11, General Beauregard delivered the ultimatum to Anderson, who replied, "Gentlemen, if you do not batter the fort to pieces about us, we shall be starved out in a few days." On direction of the Confederate government in Montgomery, Beauregard notified Anderson that if he would state the time of his evacuation, the Southern forces would hold their fire. Anderson replied that he would evacuate by noon on April 15 unless he received other instructions or additional supplies from his government. (The supply ships were expected before that time.) Told that his answer was unacceptable and that Beauregard would open fire in one hour, Anderson shook the hands of the messengers and said in parting, "If we do not meet again in this world, I hope we may meet in the better one." At 4:30 A.M. on April 12, 1861, 43 Confederate guns in a ring around Fort Sumter began the bombardment that initiated the bloodiest war in American history.
Sumter • On April 12th at 4:30 AM he opened fire, bombarding the fort with heavy fire. Major Anderson, with his ammunition on fire and supplies depleted, surrendered the following day and left the fort on April 14th. Although no casualties were caused by the enemy, one Union soldier was killed during the surrendering ceremony when a cannon backfired. The fort was neither a strategic location nor a deciding battle, but it did start what was to be the United States worst war and one of the bloodiest in history
Major Anderson • A pro-slavery Kentuckian but absolutely loyal to the Union, Robert Anderson was considered an ideal choice for commander in Charleston Harbor during the 1860 secession crisis. Having graduated from West Point (1825), he had risen to major, 1st Artillery, by the time of his assignment on November 15,1860. Given little assistance by the Buchanan Administration, Anderson was greatly perturbed by having to choose between war and peace. He took matters into his own hands on December 26, following the secession of the state six days earlier, when he moved his two-company garrison from barely defensible Fort Moultrie to unfinished Fort Sumter in the middle of the harbor. After the unannounced relief ship Star Ofthe West was fired upon by Carolinian gunners on January 9, 1861, Anderson, not wishing to start a war, withheld his fire. Later, after he had turned down an April surrender demand, Anderson was forced to return fire when the fort was bombarded on April 12-13. Forced to surrender, Anderson returned to the North with a sense of failure in not having prevented the war. He was appointed brigadier general, USA, on May 15, 186 1, and commanded the Department of Kentucky (May 28-August 15, 1861), which was merged into the Department of the Cumberland (August 15 -October 8, 186 1), which he also commanded. When his health began to fail, he was relieved of field command and given duties at various posts in the North. He was retired from the regular army on October 27, 1863, and brevetted major general for Fort Sumter. After the recapture of Charleston, Anderson took part in a ceremony in which he reraised the same flag he had lowered exactly four years earlier.
General Beaugard • The services of "The Hero of Fort Sumter," Pierre G.T. Beauregard, were not utilized to their fullest due to bad blood between the Confederate general and Jefferson Davis. His Confederate assignments included: brigadier general, CSA (March 1, 1861); commanding Charleston Harbor (March 3 - May 27, 1861); commanding Alexandria Line June 2-20, 1861); commanding Army of the Potomac June 20 - July 20, 1861); commanding Ist Corps, Army of the Potomac July 20 - October 22, 1861); general, CSA (August 31, 1861 to rank from July 21); commanding Potomac District, Department of Northern Virginia (October 22, 1861 - January 29, 1862); commanding Army of the Mississippi (March 17-29 and April 6 - May 7, 1862); second in command, Army of the Mississippi and Department Y2 (March 29-April 6, 1862); commanding the department (April 6 - June 17, 1862); commanding Department of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida (August 29, 1862 - April 20, 1864); commanding Department of North Carolina and Southern Virginia (April 22-ca. September 23, 1864); commanding Military Division of the West (October 17, 1864-March 16, 1865); and second in command, Army of Tennessee (March 16-April 26, 1865).
View of Fort Sumter in the Distance as Seen From Ft. Johnson
Fort Johnson • Fort Johnson is probably best remembered today as the place from which one signaling mortar shell was fired—a shell that opened the bombardment of Fort Sumter. The ultimate appeal had been made in the hitherto political conflict between North and South, for that one mortar shell symbolized the appeal to force. • In 1864 the fort saw its last military encounter when a group of confederates beat back and captured a sizeable force of Union troops. In the following year the fort was evacuated. Slowly it fell into rack and ruin.
Fort Moultrie • In December 1860 South Carolina seceded from the Union, and the Federal garrison abandoned Fort Moultrie for the stronger Sumter. Three and a half months later, Confederate troops shelled Sumter into submission, plunging the nation into civil war. In April 1863, Federal iron-clads and shore batteries began a 20-month bombardment of Sumter and Moultrie, yet Charleston’s defenses held. When the Confederate army evacuated the city in February 1865, Fort Sumter was little more than a pile of rubble and Fort Moultrie lay hidden under the band of sand that protected its walls from Federal shells. The new rifled cannon used during the Civil War had demolished the brick-walled fortifications.
Floating CSA Battery Charleston • Scene on the floating battery, Charleston Harbor, during the bombardment of Fort Sumter. A very important factor in the bombardment of Fort Sumter was an immense floating battery, which did effective work in the silencing of the forts guns. Major Anderson directed many of his shots at the floating battery; but while it was struck fifteen or eighteen times, not the slightest impression was made upon its iron-cased sides
Casualties • Astonishingly, despite the thirty-four hours of fighting, there were no fatalities on either side and only a few injuries. Sadly, it was during the ceremony lowering the American flag after the battle had concluded, that a loss of life occurred. On the fiftieth firing of what was intended to be a hundred salutes, the gun exploded, killing one soldier instantly. Another soldier would die of his wounds a few days later in a Charleston hospital; four other victims recovered. The battle of Fort Sumter itself failed to predict the enormous casualties that lay ahead; ironically, it was the subsequent ceremony that glimpsed the awful future.
