Captain Abner Doubleday —later famous for the myth that he invented baseball—ordered the first shots in defense of the fort a few hours later. The first shots of the Civil War had been fired. With his stores of ammunition depleted, Anderson and his Union forces had to surrender the fort shortly after 2 p.
No Union troops had been killed during the bombardment, but two men died the following day in an explosion that occurred during an artillery salute held before the U.
The bombardment of Fort Sumter would play a major part in triggering the Civil War. In the days following the assault, Lincoln issued a call for Union volunteers to quash the rebellion, while more Southern states including Virginia , North Carolina and Tennessee cast their lot with the Confederacy. Once it was completed and better armed, Fort Sumter allowed the Confederates to create a valuable hole in the Union blockade of the Atlantic seaboard.
Commander of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron, Du Pont arrived in Charleston with a fleet of nine ironclad warships, seven of which were updated versions of the famed U. While Du Pont had hoped to recapture Fort Sumter—by then a symbol of the Confederate rebellion—his attack was poorly coordinated and met with unfavorable weather conditions.
In collaboration with Fort Sumter, Confederate batteries commanded by P. Only one Union soldier was killed during the battle, but one of the ironclads, the Keokuk, sank the next day.
Five Confederates were killed during the attack, but the damage to Fort Sumter was soon repaired and its defenses improved. After being met with heavy fire from Fort Sumter, Union General Quincy Adams Gillmore turned his guns on the fort and unleashed a devastating seven-day bombardment.
On September 8 a force of nearly Union troops attempted to land at Fort Sumter and capture the post by force. Union Rear Admiral John Dahlgren mistakenly believed the fort was manned by a skeleton crew, but the landing party was met by over Confederate infantry, who easily repulsed the assault. Following the failed infantry attack, Union forces on Morris Island recommenced their bombing campaign on Fort Sumter. Over the next 15 months, Union artillery effectively leveled Fort Sumter, eventually firing nearly 50, projectiles at the fort between September and February Despite suffering over casualties from the Union bombardments, the beleaguered Confederate garrison managed to retain control of the fort until February Leave passes to the city and occasional visits to home were highly sought after.
A highlight was weekend visits by citizens to include ladies bringing picnics and offering conversation and a change from the drudgery of training and daily garrison life. While the attack was repelled, and the damage from this two and one-half hour engagement was light, it was a wake-up call.
Following this attack, preparations were immediately undertaken to strengthen the fort against further attack by heavier and longer range Union artillery. Between the ironclad attack in April and the first bombardment in August, these efforts were intense, with as many as mechanics and laborers engaged. The upper and lower casemates of the right flank or sea wall and the upper and lower rooms of the gorge wall were filled with sand and wetted cotton bales.
These reinforcement efforts also included the building of bombproofs or bomb shelters and, later, communication tunnels. While debris from the shelling played a role in the ongoing strengthening efforts, new materials hauled in night after night constituted the bulk of the repair and reinforcement. Repairs continued on a daily basis throughout the month Union bombardment, which began on August 12, The fort was under direct fire a total of days during that month timeframe.
It was to be the longest siege under fire in US military history. Over 46, projectiles were fired against it with an estimated total weight in metal of 3, tons. Confederate soldiers suffered at least 52 killed and wounded. The exact number of civilian and enslaved casualties was not carefully documented and thus remains unknown, although undoubtedly significant and thought to be roughly proportionate to the soldier casualties.
A crisis had occurred in , when Southerners had threatened secession to protect slavery. The Missouri Compromise the next year, however, calmed the waters. Under its provisions, Missouri would be admitted to the Union as a slave state, while Maine would be admitted as a free state.
And, it was agreed, future territories north of a boundary line within land acquired by the Louisiana Purchase of would be free of slavery.
The South was guaranteed parity in the U. But it had already become clear to many Southern leaders that secession in defense of slavery was only a matter of time. Sectional strife accelerated through the s. By late the next year, the Kansas Territory erupted into guerrilla warfare between pro-slavery and antislavery forces; the violence would leave more than 50 dead.
The decision threatened to make slavery a national institution. In a four-way contest against Northern Democrat Stephen A. He did make clear that he would oppose the expansion of slavery into new territories. However, the so-called Fire-eaters, the most radical Southern nationalists who dominated Southern politics, were no longer interested in compromise. Republican party, inflamed by fanaticism and blinded by arrogance, have leapt into the pit which a just Providence prepared for them.
Men young and old flocked to join militia companies. By , Charleston had witnessed economic decline for decades. It was a cosmopolitan city, with significant minorities of French, Jews, Irish, Germans—and some 17, blacks 82 percent of them slaves , who made up 43 percent of the total population. Charleston had been a center of the slave trade since colonial times, and some 40 slave traders operated within a two-square-block area.
Are they stolidly stupid? According to historian Douglas R. Moore, to a friend. Only 15 cannon had been mounted; the interior of the fort was a construction site, with guns, carriages, stone and other materials stacked about. Its five-foot-thick brick walls had been designed to withstand any cannonballs that might be hurled—by the navies of the s, according to Rick Hatcher, the National Park Service historian at the fort. Although no one knew it at the time, Fort Sumter was already obsolete.
Even conventional guns pointed at the fort could lob cannonballs that would destroy brick and mortar with repeated pounding. His force included native-born Americans as well. The garrison was secure against infantry attack but almost totally isolated from the outside world.
Conditions were bleak. Food, mattresses and blankets were in short supply. Militiamen itching for a fight flooded into Charleston from the surrounding countryside. With communications from his superiors reaching him only sporadically, Anderson was entrusted with heavy responsibilities. Although Kentucky born and bred, his loyalty to the Union was unshakeable. In the months to come, his second-in-command, Capt.
Yet a better analysis of the situation might have taught him that the contest had already commenced and could no longer be avoided. He showed tremendous restraint. Word came back at last that the conditions were acceptable to Beauregard. The garrison would leave after firing a salute to the tattered flag they had defended. Major Anderson planned to fire a hundred-gun salute to his flag, but the cartridges had to he improvised from scrap flannel.
A small steamer waited for them at the wharf on the afternoon of April 14 while Anderson's soldiers gathered on the barbette tier. Cartridges lay piled around the guns, and at p. Each crew had fired numerous rounds when a stray spark prematurely ignited one charge. The accidental explosion killed Private Daniel Hough and touched off several other cartridges that lay nearby. Five other members of Company E went down in the blast, and the ceremony stopped abruptly while comrades carried the victims to the parade.
Once they were safely down, Major Anderson ordered the salute cut short at fifty rounds. Crawford found that he could treat the three least severely wounded soldiers, but Privates George Fielding and Edward Gallway were too badly hurt to evacuate with their comrades. Gallway died at Chisholm's Hospital in the city; Fielding would go home a few weeks later, minus an eye. Explore This Park. Article Battle of Fort Sumter, April In front row: Capt.
Doubleday, Major R. Anderson, Asst. Crawford, Capt. From left in back row: Capt. Seymour, Lt. Snyder, Lt. Davis, Lt. Meade, Capt.
Library of Congress President Lincoln Orders US Navy to Fort Sumter "I am directed by the President of the United States," a letter to Major Robert Anderson , the US Army commander of Fort Sumter, read, "to notify you to expect an attempt will be made to supply Fort Sumter with provisions only, and that if such attempt be not resisted no effort to throw in men, arms, or ammunition will be made without further notice, or in case of an attack upon the fort.
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