For those of you who love history and want more information on Fort Sumter and the Civil War in this area, this post is for you. Since our time at the fort was limited, I spent all my time walking around outside, while Barney went into the battery to walk through the museum. I’m including the information he found that was new and filled in some blank spaces. These pictures are from him. Thank you! (I’ve just added some of my research and comments.)
Atlantic fortifications
In 1826, a government survey board suggested the fortification of numerous places along the Atlantic seaboard to bulk up America’s coastal defenses.
This following model shows the plan they had. Four sides were faced toward the waters to protect the fort from naval attack. The back side that faced Charleston Harbor was for apartments and offices.
Gibraltar of the South
Fort Sumter was designed to play a vital role in Charleston’s defense. The 3-tiered brick structure was to have 135 guns and 650 men: a virtual “Gibraltar.”
The description of the shot that started the war stated: “The firing of the mortar woke the echoes from every nook and corner of the harbor, …that shot was a sound of alarm that brought every soldier in the harbor to his feet, and every man, woman and child in the city of Charleston from their beds.
No one could have missed this shot.
Federal surrender/evacuation
The shelling of Fort Sumter was like a hurricane of shot as the shells fell on the Union soldiers. While the Federals fired carefully, the Confederate targets were all around the harbor. Anderson’s men soon ran out of munitions and food.
The barracks caught on fire 3 times on the first day of fighting. On April 13, the second day, Confederates fired “hot shots” at the fort; these were solid cannonballs heated red hot. They set on fire the officers’ quarters and spread, endangering the powder magazines that were supposedly in safe places. By noon the fort was almost uninhabitable.
Major Anderson of the Union forces knew that the only way to save his men was to give into General Beauregard and surrender (our ranger said they only evacuated). On April 14, 1861, Major Anderson and his garrison evacuated Fort Sumter with the full honors of war.
no turning back
On the day after the Federals evacuated Fort Sumter, President Lincoln issued a call for 75,000 volunteers to put down the Southern rebellion. His call resulted in Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas joining the Confederacy; Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri threatened to join soon.
Most Southerners rallied behind the Confederacy, confident of their victory. They believed the victory at Fort Sumter justified the showdown. The North, though, was outraged. Thousands of men answered Lincoln’s call, and crowds cheered as they marched off to battle for the Union.
The Civil War divided the nation; there was no turning back.
a symbol of resistance or determination
Fort Sumter became a symbol for both the South and the North. The South saw it as their stand for independence and resolve to resist Northern domination. The Union saw it as the Confederacy itself and determined to retake it. The Confederacy determined to hold it at any cost. The conflict was set.
As late as January 1863, vessels to and from the Bahamas were bringing in war supplies in exchange for cotton. Southern forces worked day and night to repair Fort Sumter so it could withstand the Union’s attack that they knew would be coming for control of Charleston.
Federals came back in force
The first Federal response was just 9 months later on November 7, 1861. Captain DuPont captured Confederate forts guarding port Royal Sound near Hilton Head Island (for those of you who are familiar with this vacation spot). From there, Federal troops created a stronghold for land and sea siege against Charleston. Land forces tried to capture the city at the Battle of Secessionville on James Island the next June, but failed.
Nine Federal ironclads (a warship with armor plating) led by now Admiral DuPont, began steaming single-file toward Fort Sumter on April 7, 1863. When the lead ironclad was in range, Fort Moultrie opened fire, and all the Confederate guns on Sullivan’s Island and Cumming’s Point joined in.
This firepower was too much for the slow and unwieldy ironclads; 5 were seriously disabled and 1 sank. The North was stunned by this failure, and the South was encouraged.
life under siege
When the Confederates took possession, they were confident and optimistic. They quickly focused on strengthening their new home. They also spent hours drilling, watching, and waiting.
After 2 major successes for the North in July 1863 at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, the North could turn its attention on Charleston. The intensity of the Federal bombardment later in 1863 forced them into understanding that Fort Sumter was doomed to ruin.
The men began to burrow into the earthwork to find places to live, work, and store their munitions. Long, low, narrow passages connected the quarters and the batteries. In essence, they were forced to live like moles under dangerous circumstances and unhealthy conditions.
role of slaves and the fort
Fort Sumter was constructed at a time when slavery was legal in the U.S. The Corps of Engineers often worked with plantation owners to get workers for their projects. At least 20 workers helped build the fort’s granite foundation between 1828 and 1839.
While slaves didn’t actually build the walls of the fort, they were involved in making the Charleston grey bricks used in its construction. Abundant clay deposits and wood supplies along local rivers made brick-making a thriving industry in the early 1800s.
In 1808, twenty years before construction of Fort Sumter began, the U.S. banned international slave trade. Despite the government’s efforts, some 250,000 Africans were smuggled into the country from 1808 until the Civil War that started in 1861.
Read on for what happened to some slaves who landed in Charleston.
On August 21, the U.S. Navy captured the slave ship Echo and brought it into Charleston Harbor. Of the 450 captured, mostly young African girls and boys, 144 had already died. Initially they were held at Castle Pinckney; later they were moved to the larger Fort Sumter that was still under construction.
If that wasn’t bad enough, because of sensational descriptions of their emaciated state, entrepreneurs arranged harbor cruises to witness the grim sight at the fort.
While at the 2 locations, 35 more captive Africans died. Some of those in Charleston provided them with food and clothing, while others argued they should be sold into slavery.
President Buchanan ordered them to be transported home on the steamship Niagara. Even with medical care, only 196 of the original 450 captives (43%) were alive by the time they reached Monrovia, Liberia. The U.S. government sponsored this West African republic to re-settle free African Americans and to receive Africans freed from illegal slave ships. Of course, the returning slaves had no choice in where they were going to land in Africa.
The Echo‘s captain and crew were tried and acquitted on a technicality.
Now back to the fort.
While the Confederacy didn’t arm slaves during the Civil War, engineers could use slaves for up to 6 months to build and repair fortifications.
From August 1863 to February 1865, Fort Sumter endured one of the most intensive artillery sieges of modern warfare. Holding onto the fort wouldn’t have been possible without enslaved labor. As many as 460 slaves were working at the fort at one time. Forced to work mostly at night, many of these men were killed or wounded.
The Confederate government did set up a hospital in Charleston for sick and wounded slaves. Slaveholders were compensated for the injury or death of their “property” since accurate, detailed records were kept at the hospital.
defending the ruins during the siege
When Federal Forces gained a foothold on Morris Island in 1863, they were encouraged. They were now only 3/4 of a mile from the fort. The barrage on August 17-September 9, 1863, reduced the fort to rubble, leaving the Confederates to defend a ruin.
They strengthened the fort, converting it into an earthwork and mounting additional guns. When the Federals heard about this improvement, they launched a second major assault on October 26. For 41 days and nights, the garrison withstood more than 18,000 rounds of Union fire.
The final sustained assault against Sumter started on July 7, 1864. When it ended 61 days later on September 4, another 14,666 rounds had been hurled at the fort. Still the Confederates remained defiant.
The siege had become a stalemate.
the stalemate ends
The stalemate ended in February of 1865 when General Sherman marched north from Savannah through the interior of South Carolina. His arrival in Columbia on February 17 (116 miles away from Charleston) separated the small Confederate force on the coast from the larger Southern army to the west. The Confederates evacuated Fort Sumter and Charleston that same month when they were outflanked by General Sherman.
After the Civil War officially ended on April 9, 1865, Robert Anderson, now a retired Major General, returned to Fort Sumter on April 14 to raise again the same U.S. flag he had lowered in defeat exactly 4 years before.
On April 14, a large crowd stood to hear the ceremonies or watched in the harbor. Sumter was no longer the symbol of the Confederacy; now it was the symbol of the victorious Union. The North’s excitement that day stopped with the assassination of Abraham Lincoln that very evening in Washington, D.C.
The end of the story. Or was it? With President Lincoln dead, Vice President Johnson, a democrat, became president and stopped all that Lincoln had wanted to have done for the South and for the now-free slaves. Reconstruction policies and Jim Crow laws took over. It took until 1964 with the passage of the Civil Rights Act to finally give these citizens the rights they deserved. The law now prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. And while we’re still not there yet, at least the law is.
