Fort Sumter

10 Key excerpts on "Fort Sumter"

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  Civil War Journal: The Battles

  • Thomas Nelson, William C. Davis, Brian Pohanka, Don Troiani(Authors)
  • 1997(Publication Date)
  • Thomas Nelson

    (Publisher)

  Anderson watched all this political maneuvering on both sides with a grim sense of reality. On March 5, the day after Lincoln’s inauguration, he sent the president a letter urgently requesting relief: “I confess that I would not be willing to risk my reputation on an attempt to throw reinforcements into this harbor . . . for our relief rendered necessary by the limited supply of our provisions.”

  During the next six weeks the U.S. president agonized over what he should do about Fort Sumter. º Lincoln the politician knew that Sumter was a possible opening wedge to war. His primary commitment to the people, however, was the preservation of the Union. Thus abandoning Sumter to the Confederates would have been a concession he could not make.• After weeks of sleepless nights and chronic headaches, Lincoln came up with a plan that could lure the South into war by forcing it to fire the first shot.

  EFG

  THE SIEGE OF Fort Sumter has been called one of the most brilliant and bloodless clashes of the Civil War. It was a battle fought before the cruelty of warfare touched the hearts and minds of all Americans. While it was fought, families sat perched on their rooftops to watch the blazing spectacle of bombs bursting in air. The action at Fort Sumter began as a gentlemen’s war between the North and South, but its gentlemen’s good–In will was lost in the smoke over Charleston Harbor and led to the bloodiest four years in American history.

  On the morning of April 13 the Union soldiers within Sumter casually ate their breakfast and then went back to their guns to answer the Confederate bom–bardment. More hot shot was falling inside the barracks. The fort frequently caught fire. By 10:00 a.m. the blaze was virtually out of control, and the Confed–erate mortar shells exploding on the parade ground made any attempts to extinguish the fire impossible. At noon the entire barracks was aflame, and the blaze crept close to three hundred bar–rels of gunpowder. Anderson quickly ordered every available man to move the powder kegs.

  On April 12, 1861, hours before dawn, the first shots of the Civil War echoed across the harbor of Charleston. Charlestonians, the most vocal of all secessionists, were excited to finally hear the cannons roar. One of them, William Merritt Bristol, said, “All the pent-up hatred of the past months and years is voiced in the thunder of these cannon, and the people seem almost beside themselves in the exultation of a freedom they deem already won.” A reporter for the Charleston Courier

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  The Handy Civil War Answer Book

  • Samuel Willard Crompton(Author)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Visible Ink Press

    (Publisher)

  THE FIRST BATTLES: APRIL 1861 TO FEBRUARY 1862

  Fort Sumter

  When did the Civil War truly begin?

  At 4:20 A.M. on April 12, 1861. The Confederate batteries surrounding Fort Sumter commenced a bombardment, inaugurating the Civil War.

  Of course, some argue for other deadlines and commencements. Some say that the war was inevitable after the execution of John Brown, while others assert that Lincoln’s election was the dividing line. Regardless of where one draws the line of inevitability, however, the war itself commenced with those guns firing early on the morning of April 12, 1861.

  Where is Fort Sumter located?

  Fort Sumter is a masonry fort located just off the coast of South Carolina in Charleston Harbor.

  How much lead-up was there to the bombardment?

  Almost thirty days. For all that time, the Confederates built up their batteries at different locations, with the guns all trained on Fort Sumter. That the Confederates could bombard and force the fort to surrender was beyond doubt; whether they would choose to do so was another matter. But on April 10, 1861, President Jefferson Davis telegraphed the commander in Charleston, giving him the go-ahead either to accept the fort’s surrender or to compel it with cannon fire.

  Brigadier General Pierre T. Beauregard (1818–1893) was a Louisianan, but he had been chosen for this assignment, partly because of his special knowledge in the use of artillery. An irony that escaped no one was that his opposite number, Major Robert Anderson, had been his instructor at West Point and was a specialist in artillery. The two men began by sending polite greetings, and even the occasional bottle of wine, but by the time Jefferson Davis’ order arrived, the “game” had become deadly serious.

  Was there any chance that Fort Sumter could hold out?

  Not really. The single most immediate problem was a shortage of food, but even if that had been solved, a dozen other logistical problems stared Major Anderson in the face. Most unfair, he had little communication with Lincoln or other members of the administration. As they jostled with each other over the best way to proceed, members of the Lincoln administration left Major Anderson very much in the dark.

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  For the Common Defense

  • Allan R. Millett, Peter Maslowski(Authors)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • Free Press

    (Publisher)

  SIX    

  The Civil War, 1861–1862

  A t 4:30 A.M. on April 12, 1861, a lightning-like flash and thunderous roar shattered the predawn stillness at Charleston, South Carolina. A mortar shell arced across the sky, its burning fuse etching a parabolic path toward Fort Sumter. Moments after the shell exploded, guns ringing the harbor began battering the fort as if “an army of devils were swooping around it.” For thirty-four hours artillery commanded by General Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard fired at Sumter, setting numerous fires and knocking huge masonry flakes in all directions. Miraculously, the seemingly murderous barrage killed none of the fort’s soldiers or workmen. But the commanding officer, Major Robert Anderson, who had been Beauregard’s artillery instructor at West Point, knew the good luck could not continue. Having satisfied the demands of duty and honor, he ordered the Stars and Stripes lowered and the white flag raised. The Civil War had begun.

  Decades of sectional disagreements over the expansion of slavery into the territories and, for a small minority of northerners, the moral implications of the institution, fueled sharp differences over states’ rights versus national authority and propelled the divided nation toward that fateful moment in Charleston Harbor. Once war became a reality, many people on both sides offered predictions regarding its probable duration and who would triumph. Few, however, foresaw exactly what the war would be like. Most people optimistically predicted a brief conflict waged with the romantic heroism of a Sir Walter Scott novel. Instead, the outlines of modern total warfare emerged during a four-year ordeal. Since both sides fought for unlimited objectives—the North for reunion and (eventually) emancipation, the South for independence and slavery’s preservation—a compromise solution was impossible. No short, restrained war would convince either side to yield; only a prolonged and brutal struggle would resolve the issue.

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  Currents in American History: A Brief History of the United States, Volume II: From 1861

  A Brief History of the United States, Volume II: From 1861

  • Alan C. Elliott, Terry D. Bilhartz(Authors)
  • 2023(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  CHAPTER 7 A NATION DIVIDES, April 12, 1861 Fort Sumter and the Era of the American Civil War

  Bombardment of Fort Sumter, Charleston Harbor, April 12 and 13, 1861

  (Print by Currier & Ives. 1861. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-2570. 9-29-2006. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3a06242 )

  Time Line

  1852	Harriet Beecher Stowe publishes Uncle Tom's Cabin
  1854	The Kansas-Nebraska Act revives bitter sectional animosities
  1856	Civil War in Kansas James Buchanan is elected president
  1857	U.S. Supreme Court rejects Dred Scott's appeal for freedom
  1858	Abraham Lincoln challenges Senator Stephen Douglas to a series of debates
  1859	John Brown attacks Harpers Ferry
  1860	The Democratic Party splits Northern Democrats nominate Douglas Southern Democrats nominate John C. Breckinridge Carrying 39 percent of the popular vote, Lincoln wins the presidency South Carolina secedes from the Union
  1861	Confederates fire on Fort Sumter Lincoln calls for volunteers to crush the rebellion
  1862	Following the Battle of Antietam, Lincoln announces the Emancipation Proclamation
  1863	The Gettysburg Campaigns claims over 50,000 casualties Lincoln delivers the Gettysburg Address
  1864	Lincoln defeats McClellan to gain reelection
  1865	Robert E. Lee surrenders at Appomattox Lincoln is assassinated Andrew Johnson becomes president The Thirteenth Amendment is ratified
  1867	Andrew Johnson is impeached for violating the Tenure of Office Act
  1868	The Fourteenth Amendment is ratified U.S. Grant is elected president
  1870	The Fifteenth Amendment is ratified

  B

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  The Origins of the American Civil War

  • Brian Holden Reid(Author)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Yet this attitude, which was so important to both sides in sustaining the somewhat mythical (and over-strained) time-honoured tradition that Americans behave only defensively, never aggressively, was in one very profound sense irrelevant. If principles were at the forefront of everybody’s mind, then the symbolism pervading the confrontation could easily be extended to the forts in question. This was what happened to Fort Sumter, which became a symbol for both sides. It also became a symbol that both sides were pursuing their objectives defensively. Yet two defensive attitudes may produce an offensive act in the same way that two negative poles make a positive. 4 What were they arguing about and why did these properties assume a symbolic significance? The four properties offering the most blatant provocation were those found in the environs of Charleston, South Carolina. They included Fort Sumter (still unfinished but dominating Charleston harbour because of its location on a tiny island in the harbour entrance) and Fort Moultrie, Fort Johnson and Castle Pinckney, all nestling in the basket of secessionist vipers. Less exposed was Fort Pickens, near Pensacola, Florida. Pickens was less vulnerable, mainly because it lay outside any harbour, while Castle Pinckney, Fort Johnson and Fort Moultrie not only were weak and undermanned fortifications (Castle Pinckney boasting a garrison of one quartermaster sergeant) but also could easily be isolated from relieving naval forces. Even Sumter could not easily be succoured because any vessels coming to its rescue could easily be fired on from shore batteries (see maps). 5 These forts were held by virtue of a contract or sometimes a conditional cession from the parent state. There were obviously ways of securing legal redress for the loss of such installations if the Federal government was prepared to recognize southern independence. But this was begging the question

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  The Life and Work of Jefferson Davis

  Complete Biography, History of the Confederate States of America & The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government

  • Jefferson Davis, Frank H. Alfriend(Authors)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Madison & Adams Press

    (Publisher)

  Major First Artillery U. S. A., commanding.

  Fort Sumter, South Carolina , January 9, 1861.

  Extracts from reply of the Governor to Major Anderson.

  State of South Carolina, Executive Office, Headquarters , Charleston , January 9, 1861.

  Sir : Your letter has been received. In it you make certain statements which very plainly show that you have not been fully informed by your Government of the precise relations which now exist between it and the State of South Carolina. Official information has been communicated to the Government of the United States that the political connection heretofore existing between the State of South Carolina and the States which were known as the United States had ceased, and that the State of South Carolina had resumed all the power it had delegated to the United States under the compact known as the Constitution of the United States. The right which the State of South Carolina possessed to change the political relations it held with other States, under the Constitution of the United States, has been solemnly asserted by the people of this State, in convention, and now does not admit of discussion.

  The attempt to reënforce the troops now at Fort Sumter, or to retake and resume possession of the forts within the waters of this State, which you have abandoned, after spiking the guns placed there, and doing otherwise much damage, can not be regarded by the authorities of this State as indicative of any other purpose than the coercion of the State by the armed force of the Government. To repel such an attempt is too plainly its duty to allow it to be discussed. But, while defending its waters, the authorities of the State have been careful so to conduct the affairs of the State that no act, however necessary for its defense, should lead to a useless waste of life. Special agents, therefore, have been off the bar, to warn all approaching vessels, if armed, or unarmed and having troops to reënforce the forts on board, not to enter the harbor of Charleston; and special orders have been given to the commanders of all the forts and batteries not to fire at such vessels until a shot fired across their bows would warn them of the prohibition of the State.

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  The Lincoln Reader

  • Paul M. Angle(Author)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Golden Springs Publishing

    (Publisher)

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN—The War Begins

  THE FIRING ON Fort Sumter snapped a tension that was tighter than most of those who had been enduring it realized. On April 15, one day after Anderson’s surrender, Lincoln issued his proclamation calling out the militia to the number of 75,000. The North responded almost as one man. Mass meetings convened, wealthy citizens subscribed money to equip troops, and military companies vied with one another to be the first to fill their complements. Fife and drum sounded day and night in hamlet as well as city, while women wore out their eyes and fingers sewing flags and uniforms. Had the call been for five times 75,000, the quota would still have been met with men to spare.

  1

  ONE REASON—a primary one—for the response of the North was the stand taken by the man who had been Abraham Lincoln’s political rival for almost a quarter of a century. Though defeated for the presidency, Stephen A. Douglas was still the leader of the Northern wing of the Democratic party and idolized by vast numbers of its members. The way in which he subordinated personal and political considerations to patriotism is delineated by George Ashmun, of Massachusetts, who had presided over the Republican National Convention which nominated Lincoln. Ashmun’s analysis was written in October, 1864, when the events it related were still vivid in his memory.

  ON SUNDAY, April 14, 1861, Washington was agitated by the spread of the information of the fall of Fort Sumter, the news of which had arrived the night before. Such an event could not but produce a profound feeling at the seat of government, and discussions of the event largely displaced all the ordinary Sunday ceremonies. The course which the new Administration would take was then quite unknown, and gave ground for much anxiety. For myself, I felt that the occasion was one which demanded prompt action and the cordial support of the whole people of the North, and that this would be greatly ensured by a public declaration from Mr. Douglas. The friendly personal relations which had long existed between us justified an effort in that direction on my part; and late in the afternoon I decided to make it. On driving to his house, I found him surrounded by quite a number of political friends, whom he, however, soon dismissed with an easy grace on a suggestion of the errand which had brought me there. Our interview lasted an hour or more, and in the course of it the whole nature of his relations to Mr. Lincoln’s administration, and his duty to the country, were fully discussed. His first impulse was decidedly against my purposes. I desired him to go with me at once to the President, and make a declaration of his determination to sustain him in the needful measures which the exigency of the hour demanded, to put down the Rebellion which had thus fiercely flamed out in Charleston harbor. I well remember his first reply: “Mr. Lincoln had dealt hardly with me in removing some of my friends from office, and I don’t know as he wants my advice or aid.” My answer was that Mr. Lincoln had probably followed Democratic precedents in making removals; but that the question now presented rose to a higher dignity than could belong to any possible party question; and that it was now in his (Mr. Douglas’s) power to render such a service to his country as would not only give him a title to its lasting gratitude, but would at the same time show that in the hour of his country’s need he could trample all partisan considerations and resentments under foot. The discussion in this vein continued for some time, and resulted in his emphatic declaration that he would go with me to the President and offer a cordial and earnest support. But I shall never forget that before it was concluded his beautiful and noble wife came into the room and gave the whole weight of her affectionate influence toward the result which was reached. My carriage was waiting at the door, and it was almost dark when we started for the President’s house. We fortunately found Mr. Lincoln alone, and, upon my stating the errand on which we had come, he was most cordial in his welcome, and immediately prepared the way for the conversation which followed, by taking from his drawer and reading to us the draft of the proclamation which he had decided to issue, and which was given to the country the next morning.

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  Civil War Letters

  From Home, Camp and Battlefield

  • Bob Blaisdell(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Dover Publications

    (Publisher)

  1861

  Fort Sumter: “your communication, demanding the evacuation of this Fort”

  Major Robert Anderson, U.S.A. Fort Sumter, South Carolina April 11, 1861

    To General P. G. T. Beauregard, C.S.A. Sir:—

  I have the honor to acknowledge receipt of your communication, demanding the evacuation of this Fort, and to say in reply thereto that it is a demand with which I regret that my sense of honor and my obligations to my Government prevent my compliance.

   

  Source: The Union Reader , etc. [UR]

   

  The next afternoon at 3:30, Beauregard’s aides-de-camp delivered this reply: “By virtue of Brigadier General Beauregard’s command, we have the honor to notify you that he will open the line of his batteries on Fort Sumter in one hour from this time.” And so came the shots that started the war.

  RESIGNING FROM THE UNITED STATES ARMY: “Save in defense of my native State, I never desire again to draw my sword”

  Colonel Robert E. Lee, U.S.A. First Cavalry Arlington, Virginia April 20, 1861

  To General Winfield Scott, U.S.A. General:

  Since my interview with you on the 18th inst. I have felt that I ought no longer to retain my commission in the Army. I therefore tender my resignation, which I request you will recommend for acceptance. It would have been presented at once but for the struggle it has cost me to separate myself from a service to which I have devoted all the best years of my life and all the ability I possessed.

  During the whole of that time—more than a quarter of a century—I have experienced nothing but kindness from my superiors, and the most cordial friendship from my comrades. To no one, General, have I been as much indebted as to yourself for uniform kindness and consideration, and it has always been my ardent desire to meet your approbation. I shall carry to the grave the most grateful recollections of your kind consideration, and your name and fame will always be dear to me.

  Save in defense of my native State, I never desire again to draw my sword. Be pleased to accept my most earnest wishes for the continuance of your happiness and prosperity, and believe me,

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  My Story Of The War:

  A Woman's Narrative Of Four Years Personal Experience As Nurse In The Union Army [Illustrated Edition]

  • Mary Ashton Livermore(Author)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Golden Springs Publishing

    (Publisher)

  CHAPTER I.

  THE BEGINNING OF THE WAR—THE SPIRIT OF 1861—FIRST CALL FOR VOLUNTEERS—UPRISING OF THE NORTH—EXCITING SCENES AND INCIDENTS.

  In Boston with my dying Father—His early History—Surrender of Fort Sumter—Uprising of the North—President Lincoln’s Call for Seventy-five Thousand Troops—Their Rendezvous in Faneuil Hall—Departure of the Massachusetts Sixth for Washington—Scenes at the Boston and Albany Station—Interview with Mr. Garrison and Wendell Phillips—The Massachusetts Sixth attacked in Baltimore—War Scenes in Auburn, N. Y.—My Return to Chicago—Impressive Scenes in the Republican Wigwam—Cairo, Ill., a strategic Point—North and South hasten to seize it—Chicago Troops arrive first and take Possession—Increased Preparations for War—Washington carefully guarded—Defeat at Bull Run—The North nerved to Power and Purpose—The South exultant in Self-Confidence—Lines now sharply drawn between loyal and disloyal States.

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  AFTER THE BATTLE.

  THE opening of the War of the Rebellion found me in Boston, my native city. My own home had been in Chicago for years, but my aged father was thought to be dying, and the stern speech of the telegram had summoned me to his bedside. It was a time of extreme and unconcealed anxiety. The daily papers teemed with the dreary records of secession. The Southern press blazed with hatred of the North, and with fierce contempt for her patience and her avowed desire for peace. Northern men and women were driven from Southern homes, leaving behind all their possessions, and thankful to escape with life. Every one was asking his neighbor, “What will be the end?” but there was no answer, for over the whole North the paralysis of death seemed to have settled.

  The day after my arrival, came the news that Fort Sumter was attacked, which increased the feverish anxiety. The threats of its bombardment had been discredited, for the North believed the South to be as deeply rooted in attachment to the Union as it knew itself to be. All its high-sounding talk of war was obstinately regarded as empty gasconade, and its military preparations, as the idle bluster of angry disappointment. When, therefore, the telegraph, which had registered for the astounded nation the hourly progress of the bombardment, announced the lowering of the stars and stripes, and the surrender of the beleaguered garrison, the news fell on the land like a thunderbolt.

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  Broadus Unbound

  The Oversized Will, Intellect, and Influence of a Small Baptist

  • Betsy Reeder(Author)
  • 2023(Publication Date)
  • Resource Publications

    (Publisher)

  150

  A month later, John hears from his brother in Alexandria again.

  The Northern mind would calm much quicker if nobody would talk about taking Fort Sumter, and sure enough, the South would be more easily managed if Fort Sumter were surrendered; but the South certainly must be regarded the aggressive party in regard to the forts . . . . We all say the South shall not be coerced—that means that the Federal sword shall not be employed to force submission to Federal authority, but if by a happy combination of maneuvers we could exert a moral coercion I should be delighted, and just that is what I want, and what I hope will be brought about. . . .

  I confess I have not suffered the fears that have haunted many about Mr. Lincoln’s administration. I have felt that a Henry Clay Whig could not well be far wrong. I also confess that he is probably quite a rough, unpolished customer, not much acquainted with court styles, and will constantly expose himself to ridicule, some of it just, much unjust, but if he will only listen to Seward he will put him through. Did you read Seward’s December speech? There was sense in that—statesmanship. So I think.151

  Madison Broadus watches his hope for a peaceful resolution spiral away in the whirlwind of unfolding events. By the time Abraham Lincoln is inaugurated on the fourth of March, 1861 , six states—Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas—have followed South Carolina to the point of no return. Lincoln inherits an escalating catastrophe.

  Then, in mid-April, Confederate forces bombard Fort Sumter, forcing the outmatched, undersupplied U.S. Army to surrender the site. Lincoln responds by calling for 75 ,000 volunteers to squelch the “Southern Rebellion.”

  The birth pains of the Civil War have begun, and what is being spawned far surpasses in magnitude and horror the apprehensions of most. Madison Broadus, though, imagines the worst. His conflicted position and prescient vision travel by mail to his brother in late April, just as Virginia joins the Confederacy.

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