Fort Sumter

Fort Sumter, Charleston Harbor, South Carolina

N 32 45.141  W 79 52.479

150 years ago, the Civil War began with the bombardment of Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor.  The conflict between the states had been brewing for years as the industrialized North sought the end of slavery, particularly as the nation grew to the west, while the slave-holding south refused to go along.  The election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 was the last straw.  South Carolina was the first state to secede from the Union in December of 1860.  Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana soon followed and the Confederacy was born. 

Fort Sumter was built as a response to the War of 1912.  The attacks by the British had shown that the United States was woefully prepared for an invasion from the sea.  President Monroe ordered the construction of the Third Coastal Defense System, including Fort Sumter on a sandbar in the middle of the entrance of Charleston Harbor.  Fort Sumter was named after Brig. Gen. Thomas Sumter, a Revolutionary War hero from South Carolina.  Beginning in 1827, over 100,000 tons of rock was dumped on the sandbar to create a 2.5 acre island.  A pentagonal brick fort was built with plans for 135 cannon in three tiers, although this capacity was never reached.

 

In December 1860, when South Carolina seceded, Fort Sumter was still incomplete and unoccupied.  U.S. Army Major Robert Anderson’s company was garrisoned at Fort Moultrie, an indefensible fort on the north shore of the harbor entrance.  Days after secession, he abandoned Fort Moultrie and moved his 85 men to Fort Sumter.  The afternoon of April 11^th, 1861, three representatives of the Confederate States rowed a small boat from Charleston to Fort Sumter to demand the surrender of the fort.  Low on supplies and well aware that a ring of Confederate cannons were aimed in his direction, Major Anderson refused stating “it is a demand with which I regret that my sense of honor, and of my obligation to my Government, prevent my compliance.” 

Fort Sumter, April 12, 1861 

The next morning at 4:30 am, Confederate cannons on James Island, Morris Island, and Sullivan’s Island opened fire on the fort and didn’t stop for 34 hours.  To conserve ammunition, Anderson’s garrison returned fire only occasionally, stopping altogether has darkness fell.  The fort was a chaos of smoke and flames; masonry falling with each explosion.  The men lay on the ground gasping for breath.  The next day, the fort’s flagpole was shot down but the flag soon was raised on a short staff on the parapet.  Finally, out of ammunition, Anderson surrendered.  As a white flag appeared on the ramparts of the ruined fort, the Confederate cannons ceased.  Despite the 3,000 cannon shots fired at them, not one man in the fort had been killed.  Confederate soldiers would occupy the fort for the duration of the war under bombardment by Federal ships blockading the harbor.  The fort was finally abandoned by the Confederates when General Sherman took Charleston in 1865.  On April 14, 1865, Maj. Gen. Robert Anderson came out of retirement to re-raise the same U.S. flag over Fort Sumter that he had lowered in surrender four years earlier. 

A reenactor fires a mortar at Fort Johnson, near Fort Sumter,
to commemorate the moment the first shots of the
Civil War were fired 150 years ago in Charleston, S.C. (AP)

Today, Fort Sumter is a National Monument visited by 230,000 people per year.  Visitors take a short ferry ride from downtown Charleston to Fort Sumter where they can stroll the grounds and hear the history from the park rangers.  Last Tuesday, April 12^th, 2011, a re-enactment of the battle took place in honor of the battle’s sesquicentennial.  At 4:30 am sharp, the boom of cannons was once more heard around Charleston harbor.  It was a somber occasion and that’s a good thing. Any ‘celebration’ of the Civil War (like Charleston’s Secession Ball last December) is in bad taste at best and shockingly egregious at worse.   

Question of the Day: The first person to die in the Civil War died on April 14^th, 1861, one day after the end of the battle of Fort Sumter.  Who was he and how did he die? 


Bordewich, F., Opening Salvo, Smithsonian, April 2011