  A Confederate battery at Fort Johnson on James Island pounds away at a virtually defenseless Fort Sumter in this hand-colored contemporary engraving of the April 1861 bombardment. The first notice of the adoption of South Carolina’s Ordinance of Secession appeared in a special edition of the Charleston Mercury. CHARLESTON Passed unanimously at 1.15 o’clock, P. M. December 20th, 1860. AN ORDINANCE
That the Ordinance adopted by us in Convention, on the twenty-third day of May, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, whereby the Constitution of the United States of America was ratified, and also, all Acts and parts of Acts of the General Assembly of this State, ratifying amendments of the said Constitution, are hereby repealed; and that the union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States, under the name of “The United States of America,” is hereby dissolved. THE Fort Sumter and the Coming of War, 1861The headline in the Charleston Mercury summed it up aptly. After decades of sectional conflict, South Carolinians responded to the election of the first Republican President, Abraham Lincoln, by voting unanimously in convention on December 20, 1860, to secede from the Union. Within six weeks five other States—Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana—followed her example. Early in February 1861 they met in Montgomery, Alabama, adopted a constitution, set up a provisional government—the Confederate States of America—and elected Jefferson Davis of Mississippi as President. By March 2, when Texas joined the Confederacy, nearly all the forts and naval yards in the seceded States had been seized by the new power. Fort Sumter was one of the handful that remained in Federal possession. When South Carolina left the Union, the only post in Charleston Harbor garrisoned in strength by United States troops was Fort Moultrie on Sullivans Island. There, Maj. Robert Anderson commanded two companies of the First U.S. Artillery—about 85 officers and men. But six days after the secession ordinance was passed, Anderson, believing Moultrie to be indefensible, transferred his command to Fort Sumter. Unaware of an apparent pledge to maintain the harbor status quo, given by President James Buchanan some weeks before, Anderson acted in accordance with verbal instructions he received December 11 to hold possession of the forts in this harbor, and if attacked ... to defend yourself to the last extremity. The smallness of your force will not permit you, perhaps, to occupy more than one of the three forts, but an attack on or attempt to take possession of any of them will be regarded as an act of hostility, and you may then put your command into either of them which you may deem most proper to increase its power of resistance. You are also authorized to take similar steps whenever you have tangible evidence of a design to proceed to a hostile act. President James Buchanan, who sought to maintain peace between the North and South during his final weeks in office. His uncharacteristically firm stand against South Carolina over the Sumter situation, however, risked the very conflict he sought to avoid. Secretary of War John B. Floyd, onetime governor of Virginia and a strong secessionist sympathizer, condemned Anderson’s occupation of Fort Sumter and urged President Buchanan not to send reinforcements. Anderson thought he had “tangible evidence” of hostile intent, both towards Fort Moultrie—an old fort vulnerable to land attack—and toward Fort Sumter, then occupied by about 80 engineer workmen. He moved, Anderson afterwards wrote to Secretary of War John B. Floyd, “to prevent the effusion of blood” and because he was certain “that if attacked my men must have been sacrificed, and the command of the harbor lost.” To Anderson, a Kentuckian married to a Georgian, preservation of peace was of paramount importance. At the same time, as a veteran soldier of unquestioned loyalty, he had a duty to perform. Charlestonians were outraged. Crowds collected in the streets; military organizations paraded; and “loud and violent were the expressions of feeling against Major Anderson and his action.” On December 27 South Carolina volunteers occupied Fort Moultrie and Castle Pinckney, a third harbor fort, and began erecting defensive batteries elsewhere around the harbor. South Carolina’s governor, Francis Pickens, regarded Anderson’s move not only as an “outrageous breach of faith” but an act of aggression, and demanded, through commissioners sent to Washington, that the Federal Government evacuate Charleston Harbor. On December 28 President Buchanan, while admitting that the occupation of Sumter was against his policy, refused to accede to the demand. The North was exultant. On New Year’s Day, 1861, amid cheers for Major Anderson, salvos of artillery resounded in northern cities. By an imposing majority, the House of Representatives voted approval of Anderson’s “bold and patriotic” act. The only question that remained was whether the national government would continue to support him. At Fort Sumter, Anderson’s 85 officers and men (plus the engineer workmen who remained after the fort was occupied) garrisoned a fortification intended for as many as 650 and had “about 4 months” supply of provisions. In January President Buchanan was persuaded to send off a relief expedition. Initial plans called for sending the sloop of war Brooklyn for this purpose, but when word arrived that the South Carolinians had obstructed the harbor entrance by sinking several ships, it was decided to use the Star of the West, an ordinary merchant ship, But Charleston had been forewarned, and when the Star of the West appeared at the entrance of the harbor on January 9, 1861, cadets from the Citadel military college opened fire with several cannons mounted on Morris Island. The unarmed ship turned back. Anderson had held his fire, thinking the firing unauthorized. Orders authorizing supporting fire on his part had failed to reach him in time. For the moment, civil war had been avoided. Further relief plans were now shelved, since President Buchanan was anxious to end his term of office in peace. Yet it was apparent that eventually the garrison would have to be supplied or the fort abandoned. On January 10, Acting Secretary of War Joseph Holt (Floyd, a Southern sympathizer, had resigned over Buchanan’s refusal to evacuate Fort Sumter) ordered Anderson to act strictly on the defensive. Anderson and Governor Pickens had already exchanged angry letters over the firing on the Star of the West, and when the major refused the governor’s demand to surrender the fort (January 11), Pickens sent Isaac W. Haynes, the State’s attorney general, to Washington to try once again to get the Federal troops removed. If this failed, Haynes was to offer to buy the fort from the government. President Buchanan refused to do either. The stalemate continued. South Carolina’s Governor Francis W. Pickens, who tried to persuade President Buchanan to order Anderson and his garrison back to Moultrie. “If I withdraw Anderson from Sumter,” said the President, “I can travel home to Wheatland by the light of my own burning effigies.” Anderson stayed and Pickens fumed. Fort Sumter was now preparing for attack. Thirty-eight more guns were mounted in the first tier of casemates and along the parapet, including heavier 42-pounders and Columbiads. Five Columbiads were mounted in the parade as mortars and three howitzers about the sally port (gateway) in the gorge. By April 12, a total of 60 guns were ready. “Bombproof” shelters and “splinter-proof” traverses were constructed on the parade ground and along the parapet. Overhanging galleries were built out from the parapet at strategic points for dropping shells on an assaulting force. Special protection was given the sally port. The second tier of casemates was left unarmed, however, and the 8-foot-square openings in the outer wall were bricked up. The small size of Anderson’s garrison did not permit manning them. One of several Columbiads that Anderson had mounted as mortars inside Fort Sumter to fire on Morris Island and Charleston. None of them, however, were used during the bombardment. Charleston, too, prepared. Besides continuing routine maintenance at Castle Pinckney and Fort Moultrie, additional batteries were set up on Sullivans Island, at Cummings Point on Morris Island, and outside Fort Johnson. An “ironclad” Columbiad battery, constructed of inclined logs plated with iron, was also mounted at Cummings Point. Meanwhile, Governor Pickens continued to allow Anderson to buy fresh meat and vegetables in town to supplement his garrison “issue” supply. On March 1, the Confederate States government assumed control of military operations in and around Charleston Harbor and sent Brig. Gen. Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard to take command. Like Anderson, Beauregard (who arrived at Charleston on March 3) was a veteran of the Mexican War. He was a member of a Louisiana family of distinguished French lineage. Late captain in the U. S. Army, he had served briefly as superintendent of the U. S. Military Academy at West Point as recently as January. Once, years back, he had studied artillery there under Major Anderson. Now, pupil confronted master. President Abraham Lincoln wanted his inaugural address to convey a conciliatory message to the South. Most Southerners, however, like Emma Holmes of Charleston, thought it “stupid, ambiguous, vulgar and insolent” and “a virtual declaration of war.” When Lincoln decided to send supplies to Anderson, Confederate efforts to force the evacuation of Sumter took on new urgency. When Abraham Lincoln assumed office as President of the United States on March 4, he made it clear in a firm but generally conciliatory inaugural address that national authority must be upheld against the threat of disunion. As to the Federal forts and property in the seceded States, he said: “The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the Government....” (He did not say “repossess.”) Furthermore, there need be “no bloodshed or violence” as the result of this policy “unless it be forced upon the national authority.” The President concluded: In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to ‘preserve, protect, and defend’ it. The Sumter situation was placed squarely before Lincoln on the day he assumed office. On the morning Confederate President Jefferson Davis likewise sought to temper the growing sectional dispute, and sent commissioners to Washington to try to settle “all questions of disagreement between the two governments.” When the commissioners informed him that the Lincoln government “declines to recognize our official character or the power we represent,” Davis ordered Beauregard to demand Sumter’s surrender—“and if this is refused proceed ... to reduce it.” On April 4, Lincoln’s Secretary of War, Simon Cameron, informed Major Anderson that an attempt would be made to supply him with provisions “and, in case the effort is resisted ... to reenforce you.” Convinced from Captain Fox’s on-the-spot reports that such an expedition was feasible, and that there was no Union sentiment in South Carolina to which to appeal, Lincoln had decided on the nearest thing to preserving the status quo. Merchant steamers under cover of ships of war would carry “subsistence and other supplies” to Anderson; the warships (with troop reinforcements on board) would be used only if a peaceable landing were opposed. Fox would command. Meanwhile, in accordance with a pledge already given, the governor of South Carolina would be carefully informed in advance. The announcement of the expedition to supply Fort Sumter was the spark that set off the explosive forces which had been building up since 1850. The Confederate capital at Montgomery was informed. Anderson’s supply of fresh provisions had already been cut off on the 7th; now, his mail was seized. Work was pushed on the harbor fortifications. A new battery mounting two 24-pounders and two 32-pounders “The gage is thrown down,” said the Charleston Mercury, “and we accept the challenge. We will meet the invader, and God and Battle must decide the issue between the hirelings of Abolition hate and Northern tyranny, and the people of South Carolina defending their freedom and their homes.” A small 12-pounder Blakely rifled cannon arrived from England—a gift of a Charlestonian residing in London. Mounted at Cummings Point, it proved an ominous forerunner of the powerful rifled guns that two years later would reduce Fort Sumter to rubble. After cabinet debate in Montgomery, the Confederate Secretary of War, Leroy Pope Walker, ordered General Beauregard to demand the evacuation of the fort, and if that demand was refused, to “reduce it.” On the afternoon of April 11, three of Beauregard’s aides visited the fort under a flag of truce and presented the ultimatum. Major Anderson refused compliance but at the same time said, “Gentlemen, if you do not batter the fort to pieces about us, we shall be starved out in a few days.” Still reluctant to initiate conflict, the Montgomery government telegraphed Beauregard: Do not desire needlessly to bombard Fort Sumter. If Major Anderson will state the time at which ... he will evacuate, and agree that in the meantime he will not use his guns against us unless ours should be employed against Fort Sumter, you are authorized thus to avoid the effusion of blood. If this or its equivalent be refused, reduce the fort.... The atmosphere in Charleston was tense. In at least one household, dinner was the “merriest, maddest ... yet. Men were more audaciously wise and witty. We had an unspoken foreboding it was to be our last pleasant meeting.” Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard told Confederate Secretary of War Leroy Pope Walker that “if Sumter was properly garrisoned and armed, it would be a perfect Gibralter to anything but constant shelling, night and day, from the four points of the compass. As it is, the weakness of the garrison constitutes our greatest advantage, and we must, for the present, turn our attention to preventing it from being re-enforced ... but, should we have to open our batteries upon it, I hope to be able to do so with all the advantage the condition of things here will permit.” The map, taken from Harper’s Weekly, shows Fort Sumter and the Confederate batteries erected against it in 1861. Beauregard’s view of Sumter as a Gibralter was confirmed during the 1863-65 siege of Charleston. Among the members of Beauregard’s staff who took part in the negotiations with Major Anderson prior to the bombardment of Fort Sumter were two South Carolinians—Capt. Stephen D. Lee, a 28-year-old West Point graduate and an officer in the South Carolina volunteers, and Col. James Chesnut, 46-year-old former U.S. Senator but now a member of the Confederate Congress. Capt. Stephen D. Lee Col. James Chesnut Shortly after midnight, four Confederate officers confronted Anderson again. About three hours later, in a carefully worded reply, the Union commander agreed to evacuate “by noon on the 15th” unless he should receive prior to that time “controlling instructions from my Government or additional supplies.” But it was expected in Charleston that the Federal supply ships would arrive before the 15th. Anderson’s reply was rejected by the Confederate officers, who proceeded at once to Fort Johnson to give the order to open fire. At 4:30 a.m., a mortar shell from Fort Johnson arched across the sky and burst almost directly over Fort Sumter. This was the signal for opening the bombardment. Within a few minutes, a ring of cannons and mortars about the harbor—43 in all—were firing at Sumter. Major Anderson withheld fire until about 7 o’clock. Then Capt. Abner Doubleday, Anderson’s second in command, fired a shot at the ironclad battery on Cummings Point. Ominously, the light shot “bounded off from the sloping roof ... without producing any apparent effect.” Not at any time during the battle did the guns of Fort Sumter do great damage to the Confederate defenses. Most of Fort Sumter’s heaviest guns were on the parapet and in the parade. To reduce casualties in the small garrison, Anderson ordered these left unmanned. For a while, with the help of the engineer workmen remaining at the fort, nine or ten of the casemate guns were manned. But by noon, the expenditure of ammunition was so rapid that the firing was restricted to six guns only. Meanwhile, an eyewitness later recorded, Showers of balls from 10-inch Columbiads and 42 pounders, and shells from [10-] inch mortars poured into the fort in one incessant stream, causing great flakes of masonry to fall in all directions. When the immense mortar shells, after sailing high in the air, came down in a vertical direction, and buried themselves in the parade ground, their explosion shook the fort like an earthquake. All Charleston watched. Business was entirely suspended. King Street was deserted. The Battery, the wharves and shipping, and “every steeple and cupola in the city” were crowded with anxious spectators. And “never before had such crowds of ladies without attendants” visited the streets of Charleston. “The women were wild” on the housetops. In the The barracks at Fort Sumter caught fire three times that first day, but each time the fire was extinguished. One gun on the parapet was dismounted; another was damaged. The wall about one embrasure was shattered to a depth of 20 inches. That was caused, in part, by the Blakely rifle, firing with “the accuracy of a duelling pistol.” The quarters on the gorge were completely riddled. When night came, dark and stormy, Fort Sumter’s fire ceased entirely. Using the six needles available, the work of making cartridge bags continued; blankets, old clothing, extra hospital sheets, and even paper, were used in the emergency. Meantime, the supply fleet, off the bar since the onset of hostilities, did no more than maintain its position. It had been crippled upon departure when Seward’s meddling caused withdrawal of the powerful warship Powhatan. Now, bad weather prevented even a minimum supporting operation. Ardent Virginia secessionist Edmund Ruffin has long been credited by some historians with firing the first shot against Fort Sumter. The honor actually belongs to Capt. George S. James, commander of the 10-inch mortar batteries on James Island, who ordered the signal shell fired from Fort Johnson. Ruffin, however, did fire the first shot from the Ironclad Battery on Cummings Point. Capt. (later Gen.) Abner Doubleday, who directed the first return shot from Fort Sumter. On the morning of the 13th, Sumter opened “early and spitefully,” and, with the increased supply of cartridges, kept up a brisk fire for a while. About mid-morning “hotshot” (solid cannonballs heated red hot) set fire to the officers’ quarters. The Confederate fire then increased; soon the whole extent of the quarters was in flames, endangering the powder magazines. The blaze spread to the barracks. By noon the fort was almost uninhabitable. The men crowded to the embrasures for air or lay on the ground with handkerchiefs over their mouths. Valiant efforts by Anderson’s men had saved some of the powder before the onrush of the flames forced the closing of the magazines, and the fort’s defenders continued to fire. At every shot, Beauregard later reported, the Confederate troops, “carried away by their natural generous impulses, mounted the different batteries, and ... cheered the garrison for its pluck and gallantry and hooted the fleet lying inactive just outside the bar.” Charlestonians—men, women, and children—watch from the rooftops as Confederate batteries bombard Sumter. Anderson’s delay in returning the fire caused many to believe that he did not intend to respond at all—a situation which, in Edmund Ruffin’s view, “would have cheapened our conquest.” About 1:30 in the afternoon the flag was shot down. Almost accidentally, this led to surrender. By authority of Gen. James Simons, commanding on Morris Island, Col. Louis T. Wigfall, a former Texas senator and now one of Beauregard’s aides detached for duty at that spot, set out by small boat to ascertain whether Anderson would capitulate. Before he arrived at the beleaguered fort, the United States flag was again flying, but Wigfall rowed on. The firing continued from the batteries across the harbor. Attaching a white handkerchief to the point of his sword, Wigfall entered the fort through an embrasure on the left flank and offered the Federal commander any terms he desired, the precise nature of which would have to be arranged with General Beauregard. Anderson accepted on the basis of Beauregard’s original terms: evacuation with his command, taking arms and all private and company property, saluting the United States flag as it was lowered, and being conveyed, if desired, to a Northern port. The white flag went up again; the firing ceased. Wigfall departed confident that Anderson had surrendered unconditionally. He and his boatman were borne ashore in triumph. Louis T. Wigfall, the Yankee-hating former U.S. Senator from Texas, who unofficially negotiated and received Anderson’s surrender of Fort Sumter. Meanwhile, officers had arrived at the fort from General Beauregard’s headquarters in Charleston. From these men, dispatched to offer assistance to the Federal commander, Anderson learned that Wigfall’s action was unauthorized; that, indeed, the colonel had not seen the commanding general since the start of the battle. From another party of officers he learned Beauregard’s exact terms of surrender. They failed to include the privilege of saluting the flag, though in all other respects they were the same as those Anderson had believed he had accepted from Wigfall. Impetuously, Anderson had first declared he would run up his flag again. Then, restrained by Beauregard’s aides, he waited while his request for permission to salute the flag was conveyed to the commanding general. In the course of the afternoon, Beauregard courteously sent over a fire engine from the city. About 7:30 that evening, Beauregard’s chief of staff returned with word that Anderson’s request would be granted and the terms offered on the 11th would be faithfully adhered to. The engagement was officially at an end. During the 34-hour bombardment, more than 3,000 shells had been hurled at the fort. The Fort Sumter Flags
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On Sunday, April 14, Anderson and his garrison marched out of the fort with drums beating and colors flying and boarded the steamer Isabel to join the Federal fleet off the bar. The only fatality of the engagement occurred just prior to leaving when, on the 47th round of what was to have been a 100-gun salute to the United States flag, one of the guns discharged prematurely, exploding a pile of cartridges and causing the death of Pvt. Daniel Hough. Another man, Pvt. Edward Galloway, was mortally wounded and died several days later. The 50th round was the last. Now, as the Isabel carrying Anderson’s command steamed down the channel, the soldiers at the Confederate battery on Cummings Point lined the beach, heads uncovered, in silent tribute to Sumter’s defenders. The following day, April 15, 1861, President Lincoln issued a call for 75,000 militia. Soon the States of Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina joined the Confederacy. Civil war, so long dreaded, had begun. The Struggle for Charleston, 1863-65With Fort Sumter in Confederate hands, the port of Charleston became an irritating loophole in the Federal naval blockade of the Atlantic coast—doubly so because at Charleston “rebellion first lighted the flame of civil war.” As late as January 1863, vessels plied to and from Charleston and the Bahamas “with the certainty and promptness of a regular line,” bringing needed war supplies in exchange for cotton. Capture of Port Royal Harbor on November 7, 1861, by a Federal fleet under Capt. Samuel F. Du Pont, however, had made possible land and sea operations against Charleston. In June 1862, an attempt was made by Federal Maj. Gen. David Hunter to push through to the city by James Island on the south. This ended in Union disaster at the bloody battle of Secessionville. Meanwhile, the Monitor-Virginia (Merrimack) action in Hampton Roads had demonstrated the feasibility of an “ironclad” naval expedition against Fort Sumter, the key to the harbor. Sumter, rebuilt and strengthened, was now a formidable work armed with some 95 guns and garrisoned with upwards of 500 men. By May 1862, the Navy Department seemed possessed of what then Rear Admiral Du Pont was calling a “morbid appetite” to capture Charleston. But the War Department, far from supplying the additional troops to Hunter’s command, withdrew units to reenforce Gen. George B. McClellan’s army in its campaign against Richmond, the Confederate capital. On April 5, 1863, a fleet of nine Federal ironclads, armed with 32 heavy-caliber guns, appeared off Charleston bar. Seven were of the single-turret “cheesebox on a raft” Monitor-type; one, the Keokuk, was a double-turreted affair; and the last, the flagship New Ironsides, was an ironclad frigate. With ebb tide on the afternoon of the 7th, the “new-fangled” ironclads steamed single-file up the main ship channel east of Morris Island. The weather was clear and bright; the water “as stable as of a river.” By 3 o’clock, the Weehawken, the leading monitor, had come within range, and Fort Moultrie opened fire. The Passaic, second in line, responded. Fort Sumter held fire, its guns trained on a buoy at the turn of the channel. When the Weehawken came abreast of that point, Sumter’s right flank guns let loose. These were followed by all the guns on Sullivans Island, at Fort Moultrie, and at Cummings Point that could be brought to bear. The repulse of the navy’s April 7, 1863, attempt to capture Charleston (depicted in a contemporary engraving from Harper’s Weekly) persuaded Du Pont “that the place cannot be taken by a purely naval attack.” The admiral’s pessimism about ironclad ships of war and his decision not to renew the attack on Charleston angered the Navy Department and led to his removal from command. Rear Adm. Samuel F. Du Pont, commander of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron. It was too much for the slow and unwieldy ironclads. In the course of the 2½-hour fight, only one came within 900 yards of Fort Sumter. To the 2,209 rounds hurled against them, the ironclads were able to return 154, only 34 of which found the target. These breached and loosened 25 feet of the right flank parapet and pocked the walls elsewhere with craters up to 2½ feet deep. But it was far from enough; Fort Sumter remained strong and secure. On the other hand, five of the ironclads were seriously disabled by the accurate Confederate fire, and one, the Keokuk, sank the following morning in the shallow water off Morris Island. Confederate troops later recovered the guns of the Keokuk and mounted one of them at Fort Sumter. The North, confident of victory, was stunned by Du Pont’s failure at a time when the general military situation was gloomy. The war in the East had been bloody and indecisive; the news from the West was no better. Federal authorities now looked to a combined operation to seize Morris Island and from there demolish Fort Sumter. With Fort Sumter reduced, the harbor could be entered. Folly Island and Coles Island, next south of Morris Island, had been occupied by Northern troops just prior to the naval attack. In June and July, the north end of Folly Island was fortified. In a remarkable operation, 47 guns and mortars were secretly emplaced “within speaking distance of the enemy’s pickets.” Some 11,000 men were concentrated on the island. Brig. Gen. Quincy A. Gillmore, the “breacher” of Fort Pulaski, took command on June 12. Rear Adm. John A. Dahlgren superseded Admiral Du Pont on July 6. During that time the Confederates mounted guns at the south end of Morris Island and strengthened the earthworks at its upper end—Battery Gregg at Cummings Point and Battery Wagner some 1,400 Maj. Gen. Quincy A. Gillmore, commander of the Federal land forces besieging Charleston, 1863-64. In the year that he spent at Charleston, Gillmore and Du Pont’s replacement, Rear Adm. John A. Dahlgren, conducted a cooperative and sustained operation that resulted in the capture of Morris Island and Battery Wagner and the virtual demolition of Fort Sumter. Rear Adm. John A. Dahlgren Fort Sumter, 1,390 yards distant from Battery Gregg, prepared for siege, too. Brick and stone masonry “counter-forts,” already built at each extremity of the esplanade as protection for the magazines, were now strengthened, and much of the remaining gorge exterior was sandbagged or otherwise protected. The casemates on the right or sea front flank were filled with sand, and the rooms on the gorge were filled with damp cotton bales laid in sand. The upper-tier magazines were abandoned and filled with sandbags to protect the magazines below. Protective revetments and other defensive devices were introduced at various points throughout the fort. Frequently during this period the garrison was host to officers on leave, citizens of Charleston, and even many ladies, who came to see the scars of the April battle, to admire the drill, or to observe the preparations. At the end of June 1863, Fort Sumter was garrisoned by five companies (perhaps 500 men) of the First South Carolina Artillery, under command of Col. Alfred Rhett. Its armament had been reduced to 68 guns and mortars, many of the best pieces having been removed to strengthen other fortifications about the harbor. On the morning of July 10, 3,000 Union infantry, supported by four monitors and the artillery on Folly Island, descended on the southern end of Morris Island. Directing the attack was Brig. Gen. Truman Seymour, a company commander at Fort Sumter two years before. Within four hours, most of the Island was in his hands. The Confederate forces, outgunned and outmanned, fell back to Battery Wagner. Sumter’s guns helped to cover their retreat. A “desperate” assault upon Wagner the next morning failed, though the parapet was briefly gained. General Gillmore established counter-batteries and tried again on the 18th. From noon until nightfall that day, “without cessation or intermission,” Federal guns poured a “storm of shot and shell upon Fort Wagner ... perhaps unequalled in history.” This was followed by an attack by some 6,000 troops, spearheaded by the 54th Massachusetts, the first U.S. black regiment to go to war. In a short, savage struggle, Seymour’s force suffered 1,500 casualties. Though one angle of the fort was gained and held for a time, the attack was repulsed. Part of Gillmore’s map of the Charleston defenses. Col. Alfred Rhett commanded Fort Sumter during the April 1863 ironclad attack and the first great bombardment of August-September. Brig. Gen. Truman Seymour, who served at Fort Sumter under Anderson in 1860-61, commanded the assault troops that captured Morris Island in July 1863. He was severely wounded in the subsequent attack on Battery Wagner. Thwarted in his plan to secure easy possession of Morris Island as a base for breaching operations against Fort Sumter, Gillmore now determined to batter the fort into submission from the ground he already possessed. Batteries Wagner and Gregg would be taken by protracted siege operations. Anticipating that Sumter was “liable to be silenced sooner or later” and fearing attack at other points about the harbor, Confederate authorities continued to remove the fort’s guns and ammunition for use elsewhere. By mid-August, Sumter’s armament was reduced to 38 cannon and two mortars. At distances of 2 to 2½ miles from Fort Sumter—distances extraordinary for such operations—Gillmore set up eight batteries of heavy rifled cannon. In the marsh west of Morris Island, where the mud was like liquid, his engineers successfully placed a 200-pounder Parrott rifle—the notorious “Swamp Angel”—to fire on Charleston. Gillmore’s batteries did some experimental firing in late July and early August, testing the range and the effects of their shots on Sumter. The real bombardment began on August 17, with nearly 1,000 shells being fired that first day alone. Almost 5,000 more were fired during the week that followed. Even at the end of the first day it was obvious that the fort was never intended to withstand the heavy Parrotts. Three days later, a monstrous 13-ton Parrott rifle hurling 250-pound shells was added to Gillmore’s armament, making 18 rifled cannon in action. The range kept Sumter from replying to the land batteries, and the monitors appeared only fleetingly. On the 21st, with the “Swamp Angel” in position, Gillmore demanded the evacuation of Fort Sumter and Morris Island. Otherwise he would fire on Charleston. The ultimatum was unsigned, however, and before the Confederates could confirm its origin, Gillmore had opened fire. But little damage had been done when, on the 36th round, the “Swamp Angel” burst. Meanwhile, Beauregard had delivered an indignant reply. The bombardment of Sumter continued. Early on the 23d, against Dahlgren’s ironclads, Fort Sumter fired what proved to be its last shots in action. Its brick masonry walls were shattered and undermined; a breach 8 by 10 feet yawned in the The bombardment continued sporadically during the following week. On the night of September 1-2, the ironclads moved against the fort—the first major naval operation against Fort Sumter since the preceding April. For five hours, the frigate New Ironsides and five monitors bombarded the fort, now without a gun with which to answer the “sneaking sea-devils.” Two hundred and forty-five shot and shell were hurled against the ruins—twice as many as were thrown in the April attack. The tidal conditions, plus a “rapid and sustained” fire from Fort Moultrie, forced the monitors to withdraw. Some desultory firing on the 2d brought to an end the first sustained bombardment of Fort Sumter. More than 7,300 rounds had been hurled against the fort since August 17. Now, with the fort reduced to a “shapeless and harmless mass of ruins,” the Federals could concentrate on Battery Wagner, only 100 yards from Gillmore’s forward trenches. On the morning of September 5, Federal cannoneers began a devastating barrage against Battery Wagner. For 42 hours, night and day, in what General Gillmore called a spectacle “of surpassing sublimity and grandeur,” 17 mortars and nine rifled cannon, as well as the powerful guns of the ironclads, pounded the earthwork. Calcium lights turned night into day. On the night of September 6-7, the Confederates evacuated Wagner and Gregg. Morris Island was at last in Union hands. Fort Sumter, however, remained defiant. When Dahlgren demanded the fort’s surrender, on the morning of the 7th, General Beauregard sent word that the admiral could have it when he could “take it and hold it.” On September 4 the garrison had been relieved by fresh troops, 320 strong. Maj. Stephen Elliott succeeded to the command. The Fight for Battery WagnerBattery Wagner
Col. Robert Gould Shaw
Maj. Stephen Elliott, one-time captain of the Beaufort (Light) Artillery, assumed command of the Fort Sumter ruins in September 1863 at the personal request of General Beauregard. Elliott remained in charge until May 1864, when he was transferred to command a regiment in Virginia. Dahlgren “immediately designed to put into operation a plan to capture Fort Sumter.” Accordingly the monitor Weehawken was ordered “to cut off all communication” via Cummings Point, while New Ironsides and the remaining ironclads moved up “to feel, and if possible, pass” the obstructions thought to be in the channel north of the fort. But Weehawken grounded, and the monitors caught such a severe fire from Fort Moultrie and the other Confederate batteries on Sullivans Island, that the admiral “deemed it best to give [his] entire attention to the Weehawken” and withdraw. Whatever his original plan, Dahlgren now decided upon a small-boat assault. The task seemed simple: with “nothing but a corporal’s guard in the fort,” all he had to do was “go and take possession.” On the night of September 8-9, 400 sailors and marines made the attempt. A tug towed the small boats within 800 yards of the fort, then cast them loose. In the darkness and confusion, plans went awry and two columns advanced simultaneously upon the right flank of the fort. The Confederates coolly held their fire till the Federals in the lead boats began to land, then let loose with musketry, hand grenades, “fire balls,” grape and canister, brickbats, and masonry fragments. At a signal from the fort, the Confederate gunboat Chicora steamed out from the harbor and opened fire; Fort Moultrie “fired like a devil.” From the outer boats, the marines replied rapidly for a few minutes. Some of the sailors ashore fired a few shots from their revolvers, but most sought refuge in the embrasures or breaches in the wall. It was all over in 20 minutes. Most of the boats did not even touch shore. The Federal loss was 124 killed, wounded, and captured, and five boats were taken. A similar expedition from Gillmore’s command was detained by low tide in a creek west of Morris Island. Service rivalry had prevented active cooperation that might have resulted in victory. Except for a six-day bombardment of “minor” proportions late in September, Fort Sumter was free of attack for almost two months. Damages sustained by the monitors in the Morris Island operation, as much as Fort Moultrie’s increased firepower and the fear of channel obstructions (a menace which later proved to be greatly exaggerated), made Admiral On October 26, having learned that the Confederates were remounting some of Sumter’s guns, Gillmore resumed the bombardment. For the next 12 days, the concentration of fire was comparable to the great bombardment of the preceding August. But now, with the new batteries on Cummings Point in operation and the range shortened to less than a mile, the effect was far greater. For the first time, 16 heavy mortars were in use—two of them 8½-ton pieces (13-inch bore) throwing 200-pound projectiles. Their sharp, plunging fire was added to that of 12 Parrott rifles—the types already used so effectively against the fort—and one powerful Columbiad. In addition, two monitors, with guns “equal to a dozen” Parrotts, crossed fire with Gillmore’s artillery. Sumter’s sea front (right flank), upright and relatively unscathed till now, was breached for nearly half its length. The ramparts and arches of its upper casemates were cut down and the interior barracks demolished. The accumulated debris made ascent easy inside and out. Through the breach, the Federal guns took the channel fronts in reverse. Exposed to direct fire for the first time, they were soon cut and jagged. Still, the gorge ruin remained much the same; to Admiral Dahlgren, that “heap of rubbish” looked invincible. Night and day throughout November and into December, Gillmore’s batteries, assisted occasionally by the monitors, maintained a slow fire against the fort. Sumter could respond with merely “harmless musketry,” but its defenders seemed “snug in the ruins.” And if Sumter was without cannons, Confederate batteries on James and Sullivans Islands kept up an irritating counterfire. Sumter Under FireFort Sumter, from the northern tip of Morris Island
The damage caused to the fort’s interior during Gillmore’s “First Great Bombardment” is evident in the remarkable “action” photograph, taken by Charleston photographer George S. Cook on September 8, 1863, just as a shell from the Federal ironclad Weehawken burst on the rubble-strewn parade ground during Admiral Dahlgren’s naval assault on the harbor batteries. Maj. John A. Johnson, commanding engineer at Fort Sumter during the 1863-65 Confederate occupation. On November 6, the Confederate engineer at Fort Sumter, Maj. John Johnson, reported that while the height of the mass of the fort was “diminishing visibly on the sides away from the city, when it gets down to the lower casemates it will have become so thick from accumulated debris as to resist further battering.” Two weeks later, he found the fort stronger than ever, with casualties surprisingly low—only two men were killed in the August bombardment and only 22 more since the start of the present one; 118 had been wounded. Johnson was not fearful of being driven out by the big Federal guns, but rather “exposure to assault from barges at night.” In mid-November such an attack seemed to be forthcoming. During the early hours of the 18th, the defenders of the fort had four distinct alarms as small boats approached within hailing distance; “all hands out each time and expecting a fight.” On the following night, a force estimated at 250 men approached within 300 yards of the fort, only to be driven off by the muskets of the aroused garrison. This was not, however, a real attack but only a reconnaissance ordered by Gillmore “with a view to compel the garrison to show its strength.” Having done that, he would now wait for the Navy to make the next move. But Admiral Dahlgren could not move until the repairs on the monitors were finished, and as late as January 1864 these still were not completed. Even so, confronted with reports of greatly strengthened harbor fortifications and a growing concern over the exact nature of the harbor obstructions, he was reluctant to move without additional monitors. Defeat was always possible, and defeat for the Union’s only ironclad squadron might have serious consequences—not only for the blockade and Gillmore’s command on Morris Island, but for operations elsewhere along the coast. Nevertheless, substantial advantages had already been gained: the blockade at Charleston was tighter with Morris Island in Federal hands. To all this, the Navy Department agreed. Elsewhere, while Dahlgren and Gillmore marked time, the war gathered momentum. In November 1863, the North won decisively at Chattanooga. The additional monitors, always promised, never seemed to arrive. On December 5, General Gillmore stopped the bombardment of Fort Sumter begun 41 Dahlgren’s much-needed monitors never did arrive (Grant needed those, too) and, with the monitor force he did have reduced to six by the foundering of the Weehawken in December, further offensive operations against Charleston seemed completely out of the question. In June, the ironclad frigate New Ironsides was withdrawn to the north. In the preceding December, Fort Sumter had been an almost chaotic ruin. But with the fort practically left alone during the months immediately following, the garrison gradually restored order from chaos. The parade ground, excavated well below high-water level to provide sand-filling, was cleared, drained, and partially rebuilt. Trim ranks of gabions (wicker baskets filled with sand) bolstered the sloping debris of the walls on the interior. The three-gun battery in the lower right face was lined with logs and planks, 10 feet deep, and revetted more thoroughly in the rear. In casemates on the left flank another three-gun battery was created. Through the disordered debris of the left and right faces, the garrison tunneled a 275-foot timbered gallery connecting the two batteries and fort headquarters in the left flank. And in from the rubble of the sea front, the garrison built a loopholed timber blockhouse to cover the parade ground in the event of further assault. In May, Capt. John C. Mitchel, son of the Irish patriot, relieved Lt. Col. Stephen Elliott in command. The onset of summer, 1864, brought one more attempt to take Fort Sumter; likewise another officer of the original Fort Sumter garrison came into the operation. Maj. Gen. John G. Foster, engineer of the fort in April 1861, had succeeded to Gillmore’s command on May 26 and was convinced that “with proper arrangements” the fort could easily be taken The last two commanders of Fort Sumter: Capt. John C. Mitchel, who was killed in July 1864 during the third great bombardment after commanding only two months and 16 days. Capt. Thomas A. Huguenin, who remained in charge until Charleston and Fort Sumter were evacuated in February 1865. On July 7, 1864, Foster’s batteries opened a sustained bombardment against the ruin of Fort Sumter. During the remainder of that month, an average of 350 rounds daily were hurled at the beleaguered fort. In some respects, this was the heaviest bombardment Fort Sumter had yet received. Although the gorge ruin was wasted away at one point to within 20 feet of the water, and the shattered sea front was still further reduced, the right face remained erect, its three-gun battery intact; likewise most of the left flank. To Admiral Dahlgren, as late as July 21, the work seemed “nearly impregnable.” Debris added to debris, feverish work day and night, and thousands of bags of sand brought from the city by night actually made the fort stronger than ever. If a casemate were breached, it was speedily filled; if the slopes of the ruin invited assault, a bristling array of wooden pikes and barbed-wire entanglements were provided; and there were always the muskets of the 300-man garrison. The fire slackened in August; Foster’s supply of ammunition dwindled, and his requisitions for more went unfulfilled. A scheme for “shaking down” the fort walls by floating down large “powder rafts” failed miserably. Mid-August brought final War Department refusal to supply light-draft steamers; the end of August, sharp disapproval of Foster’s “assaulting arks.” Meanwhile, Dahlgren had been unwilling to cooperate in an alternate plan of assault and Foster himself was ordered to remain strictly on the defensive. He was also called upon to ship north most of his remaining ammunition and four more regiments of troops to be used in Grant’s operations against Richmond. On September 4, the bombardment begun on July 7 came to an end. In those 61 days, another 14,666 rounds had been hurled against the fort. Sixteen of the garrison had been killed, 65 wounded. On Maj. Gen. John G. Foster, who replaced Gillmore as commander of land operations at Charleston. Foster had been Anderson’s engineer officer at Fort Sumter during the 1861 bombardment. The last great bombardment of Fort Sumter had taken place. The firing was no more than desultory after September 1864; less than a hundred rounds were hurled at the fort in the months of December and January; none at all in February. During the autumn months it was all Foster’s batteries could do to make a reasonable defense of Morris Island, let alone carry on any offensive operations. In February 1865 the long stalemate came to an end as Gen. William T. Sherman marched north from Savannah through the interior of South Carolina, slicing between the remnants of Gen. John B. Hood’s Confederate army on the west and the small Confederate force remaining along the coast. On the 17th, with Sherman in Columbia, Fort Sumter and the other Confederate fortifications in Charleston harbor were quietly evacuated. At 9 o’clock on the morning of the 18th, the United States flag was once more raised over Fort Sumter. The fortunes of war had accomplished what 3,500 tons of metal, a fleet of ironclads, and thousands of men had failed to do. The 1865 Flag RaisingFort Sumter: painting by Seth Eastman
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