Fort Sumter

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Fort Sumter

• April 12th-14th 1861

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1861 Model of Fort Sumter
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Fort Sumter
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Fort Sumter
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Fort Sumter
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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.

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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 430
  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.

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Sumter

• On April 12th at 430 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

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24hr Bombardment
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Map of Charleston Harbor
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Confederate Flag April 14th 1861 over Fort Sumter
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Andersons surrender notification
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View Inside Fort Sumter
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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 Of the 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.

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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).

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Fort Sumter Looking Towards Morris Island
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Guns of Fort Sumter
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Forts Interior
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Walls of Sumter
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Guns of Fort Johnson, With Sumter on the Horizon
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View of Fort Sumter in the Distance as Seen From
Ft. Johnson
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Picture of Channel Side of Fort Sumter
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Channel side Bastion
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Channel side Bastions
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North Wall of Fort Sumter, 1865
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Front of Fort Sumter,
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Fort Sumter 1865
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Looking back at Charleston Harbor
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Fort Johnson

• Fort Johnson is probably best remembered today as
  the place from which one signaling mortar shell
  was fireda 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.

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Fort Moultrie
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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 Charlestons 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.

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Fort Moultrie
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The famous Floating Battery at Sumter
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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

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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.