Today is the day; we’re off to Fort Sumter. In school I learned that the first shot of the Civil War was at/from Fort Sumter in Charleston. What do you know about this shot? Now we’re both going to learn the rest of the story. This first post is about what happened before and after the first shot and what we saw as we walked around the fort; the next post covers the fighting here when the Confederates held the fort, and the 3rd post has more historical information about the fort and the Civil War, especially how and why the Confederates left the fort to the Union army.
On the boat ride to the island, our park volunteer told us about who in South Carolina actually voted to secede from the U.S. In 1860, only white males who owned property could vote. So even though the state had a population of 703,708 (Wikipedia), 43% were free and 57% were slaves. On December 20, 1860, the 169 plantation owner delegates who were present at the convention in Charleston voted unanimously to secede from the federal Union. So 169 men decided the fate of over 700,000 citizens–males, females, whites, and blacks.
Let’s begin our trip.
Fort Sumter is the black 5-sided spot in the middle. Charleston is directly to the left of the fort, and the batteries we’ll be talking about are on the top and bottom sides of this map on Sullivan and James Islands.
Little known fact: Fort Sumter was named for a South Carolina patriot of the War for Independence, Thomas Sumter.
Between 1863 and 1865, the fort endured a near continuous bombardment by Union forces. The left face wall was reduced from 55 to 16.4 feet above the water. Since then, major threats facing the fort have been time, increased harbor traffic, and possible changing environment. If the seas rise, the fort’s walls could be overwhelmed, and the parade ground could be flooded.
Fort Sumter wasn’t here before the Civil War. An island of over 50,000 tons of granite had to be shipped in from New York and New England. In 1829, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began constructing this island, and then allowed the land to settle before the walls could be constructed. Building stopped in the 1830s over a dispute of ownership of the stretch of the harbor and didn’t resume until 1841. Construction slowed again in 1859 due to lack of funding. By 1860 the island and the outer fortifications were complete, but the fort’s interior and armaments needed to be completed.
The engineers took extreme care to ensure that the fort’s brick and mortar walls were built above the high water mark. They knew that constant salt water could weaken or damage the bricks and mortar.
Remember we said in the previous Fort Fisher posts (Wilmington) that forts were no longer made with brick and mortar since newer artillery could slice right through it? That knowledge started because of what happened here during the early shelling of Fort Sumter.
When we entered the fort, the ranger in the middle of the next picture gave us a lecture of what happened here. She was so good. I wish I had had history teachers who taught as she did. Hope she makes some YouTube videos! Much of what she said I found on the signs that are in this post and the next one, but she put it all together.
Fort Sumter 1861 – big picture
My understanding of the Civil War has been so limited until I started seeing the places we’ve been and learning what really happened. You too? The following information comes from a variety of sources.
When South Carolina seceded, four Federal installations were around Charleston Harbor: Fort Moultrie on Sullivan’s Island, Castle Pickney on Shute’s Folly Island near the city, Fort Johnson on James Island across from Fort Moultrie, and Fort Sumter at the harbor entrance.
On April 12, 1861, Confederate forces began bombarding Fort Sumter and the Civil War began. Our park ranger told us that the first shot was really a sign to tell Confederates in other locations on the islands around the fort to start shooting.
The next day the Federal garrison decided to evacuate because of all those hurt inside and lack of munitions, and they left on the 14th. Our ranger told us that it was an evacuation and not a surrender. This date of leaving is important, because Major Anderson, who was in charge of the fort and took the flag with him, returned on the exact same day 4 years later with the same flag when the war was over. But, President Lincoln was assassinated that evening so Major Anderson’s return was only honored that afternoon. (More about Major Anderson soon.)
Union forces continually tried to regain control of the fort and with it the Charleston Harbor for the rest of the war. A Union blockade was set up (remember blockade-runners?), attacks were made by ironclad warships, and a 22-month siege was put into place–one of the longest in U.S. military history. The Union’s heavy shelling from land batteries during 1863-1865 reduced most of the fort to a mound of rubble by the end of the war.
It was designed to have 135 guns and a garrison of 650 men. The pentagon-shaped fort was described as one of the “most spectacular harbor defense structures to come out of any era of military architecture.” Sounds like a good plan.
The top view of the following picture shows the Confederate bombardment in 1861 that forced the evacuation of the Federal garrison and signaled the beginning of the Civil War.
back to before the war
Morris Island, across the river from Charleston, was the scene of the Civil War’s first hostile cannon fire, even before the shot on/over Fort Sumter happened.
By January 1861, Union troops on Fort Sumter were surrounded by Southern defenses. To reinforce the fort, the current Federal President, James Buchanan, secretly sent unarmed coastal steamer Star of the West, a two-deck, side-wheel, schooner-rigged merchant ship, to Charleston. But of course an intelligence leak happened, and a South Carolina battery that included cadets from the Citadel opened fire from Morris Island on January 9. The school proudly claimed that they fired the “first shots” of the Civil War. Little damage was done by their outdated guns, but the guns of Fort Moultrie joined them, “encouraging” the Star of the West to retreat and abandon the mission.
Wanting to avoid arousing Southern anger, President Buchanan had sent the sidewheeler instead of a warship. Guess it didn’t work.
Fort Moultrie on Sullivan’s Island (top of the map on this post) had been an early harbor defense position during the Revolutionary War and War of 1812. Fort Sumter was to become an additional protection for the harbor. Charleston’s narrow main ship channel passed between the 2 forts. Entering enemy ships would be trapped in a crossfire of cannon.
The next map from 1863 shows the importance of these 2 forts in controlling the entrance to Charleston Harbor. It’s hard to see, but Fort Moultrie is on the land mass north of Fort Sumter, and Fort Sumter is in the middle of the channel.
Major Robert Anderson took command of the Union forces at Fort Moultrie in November 1860. From Kentucky, he was the son of a Revolutionary War defender of Charleston.
When South Carolina seceded from the Union on December 20, 1860, Anderson realized that his 85 men couldn’t hold Fort Moultrie against attack. He knew that South Carolina militia forces would soon seize the city’s other forts held by Union forces, leaving Fort Sumter as the lone federal outpost in Charleston; a pretty lonely place to be.
On April 11, 1861, Southern militia commander P.G.T. Beauregard demanded that Anderson surrender Fort Sumter, but Anderson refused–a couple of times. Beauregard had been one of Anderson’s artillery students at West Point in 1837 so probably didn’t welcome the the idea of firing on his old friend and former instructor. When President Abraham Lincoln announced plans to resupply the fort, General Beauregard began bombarding Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861.
the first shot
Across the harbor from Fort Moultrie lies Fort Johnson, the place responsible for the shot that began the Civil War on April 12, 1861. A soldier at Fort Sumter would have seen an ominous flash as a mortar fired. The shell arched high across the sky and burst almost directly overhead when it reached the fort. The shot was actually a signal for the Confederate batteries around Charleston Harbor to open fire on Fort Sumter.
Beauregard’s 19 coastal batteries unleashed a punishing barrage on Fort Sumter, eventually firing an estimated 3,000 shots at it in 34 hours. By Saturday, April 13, cannon fire had broken through the fortress’s 5-foot-thick brick walls, causing fires inside the post. With his stores of ammunition depleted and multiple men injured, Anderson and his Union forces had to agree to evacuate the fort shortly after 2 p.m. in the afternoon. No one on either side had been killed, and only 5 Federal soldiers were injured.
When Major Anderson evacuated Fort Sumter in April 1861, all Union forces left Charleston’s defenses in Confederate hands. The South, then, controlled the harbor for the rest of the war, despite the Union blockade and bombardment.
Major Anderson took his troops to New York, which was his home. Most of his troupes had been immigrants so he figured (so we were told) that they would probably have friends there and could fit in more easily.
They had defended Sumter for 34 hours until “the quarters were entirely burned, the main gates destroyed by fire, the gorge walls seriously injured, the magazines surrounded by flames.” (quote from NPS brochure) The Civil War had begun.
During this time the port of Charleston prospered. Keeping the city open for trade was crucial for the Confederacy to survive. The South’s forts protected Charleston throughout the war, despite blockade, warship attacks, and 2 years of bombardment and siege.
Relative peace prevailed in the city until 1863 when Union forces captured nearby Morris Island (on the southern side of Fort Sumter) and began shelling the city. While bombarding the city was a strategic decision, many Union supporters believed the city deserved to be destroyed for leading the secessionist movement and firing the first shots.
the fort as we saw it
The next post (part 21) is full of information and pictures of the Confederate soldiers fighting off the Union army and navy from 1861 to 1865.
