  Fort Sumter Today From Wartime Ruin to National MonumentThe task of clearing the rubble and ruin of war from the interior of Fort Sumter began in the 1870s. In the forefront of the project was Quincy A. Gillmore, whose Union gunners were responsible for most of the destruction in the first place. The outer walls of the gorge and right flank, largely demolished by the shellfire, were partially rebuilt. The other walls of the fort, left jagged and torn 30 to 40 feet above the water, were leveled to approximately half their original height. Through a left flank casemate, where a barracks once stood, a new sally port was constructed. Within the fort itself, earth and concrete supports for 10 rifled and smoothbore guns mounted en barbette (guns placed on an open parapet) began to take shape. Construction was well advanced by June 1876, when a shortage of funds forced suspension of activity. By that time, only three permanent barbette platforms had been built; the other seven remained temporary (wooden) platforms upon which were mounted four 8-inch Parrott rifles and two 15-inch Rodman smoothbores. In a modification of the original plan, 11 lower-tier gunrooms of the original fort along the right face and about the salient had been repaired and armed with 6.4-inch Parrotts. These 17 guns, in a gradually deteriorating state, constituted Fort Sumter’s armament for the next 23 years. From 1876 to 1898, the fort stood largely neglected, important mainly as a lighthouse station. Most of that time it was also ungarrisoned and in the charge of a “fortkeeper” or an ordnance sergeant. Lacking maintenance funds, Sumter, even then visited by thousands each year, fell into a state of dilapidation. By 1887 the wooden barbette platforms had rotted away so that “not one gun could be safely fired”; the neat earth slopes had eroded into “irregular mounds”; and quantities of sand had drifted onto the parade ground. At casemate level, salt water dashed freely through the open embrasures, the shutters of which were no longer in working order, and the guns rusted so badly that they could not be moved on their tracks. By the end of the century, the major world powers were building massive steel navies, and the United States responded by modernizing its coastal defenses. In 1899 two 12-inch breech-loading rifled guns were installed at Fort Sumter, their position further strengthened by earth fill extending to the top of the old walls. The massive concrete emplacement for this battery (named for South Carolinian Isaac Huger, a major general in the American Revolution) dominates the central portion of the fort today. The guns, long since outmoded, were removed for scrap in 1943. During late World War II, Fort Sumter was armed with four 90-mm guns manned by a company of Coast Artillery. The fort, transferred from the War Department to the National Park Service, became a national monument on July 12, 1948. The following guide highlights the main historical portions of Fort Sumter today. There is no set sequence by which to see the fort, but you may want to refer to the photograph on pages What to See at Fort SumterSally PortThis present-day entrance to Fort Sumter, runs through the center of the fort’s left flank wall. It was built after the Civil War and replaced a gun embrasure. A marker on the left flank near the sally port honors Sumter’s Confederate defenders. The original sally port entered through the gorge at the head of a 171-foot stone wharf which once jutted out from the center of the esplanade. The esplanade, a 25½-foot-wide promenade and landing space, extended the full length of the gorge exterior at its base. Sally port Left-Flank CasematesThe first tier of casemates (gunrooms) was surmounted by a second tier identical in appearance. At the time of the April 12, 1861, bombardment these casemates contained several 32-pounders, most of which bore on Fort Johnson. Above the second-tier casemates, guns were mounted en barbette on an open terre-plein. This arrangement was also used on the fort’s right flank and on its right and left faces. Each casemate contained one gun, which could be moved on a track in order to adjust the angle of fire through the embrasure. Fort Sumter was designed for an armament of 135 guns and a garrison of 650 men. There are now two guns mounted on the casemate carriages in the left flank. The one on the left of the sally port is a rifled and banded 42-pounder; the one on the right is a 42-pounder smoothbore. Shielded (by the mass of the gorge) from Federal guns on Morris Island, the left-flank casemates were used as a Confederate headquarters and hospital. The lower half of the outer wall retained its full height until the end of the siege, but was leveled to approximately half this during the 1870s. Casemates Cannon in casemate Fort Sumter TodayFort Sumter Today
Left FaceDuring the 1863-65 siege of Charleston, reverse fire from Union gunners on Morris Island crossed the parade and struck the interior of the left face, destroying the arched brick casemates. Holes caused by these shots, as well as several projectiles themselves, are still visible in the wall. Outside the casemate ruins are two 15-inch smoothbore Rodman guns, an 8-inch Columbiad, and a 10-inch mortar. Left face Right FaceGuns mounted on the lower tier of this face dueled with Fort Moultrie in the initial Confederate attack of 1861. Since the angle of the face allowed it to escape the destructive fire from Federal batteries on Morris Island, its outer wall still stood almost at full height in February 1865. After the destructive bombardments of August 1863, the Confederate garrison mounted three guns in the first-tier casemates just above the right shoulder angle. Referred to as the “Palmetto Battery,” because of the protective log cover raised on the exterior, this three-gun position was the sole offensive armament of the fort for several months. All the lower-tier casemates were reclaimed in the 1870s and armed with 100-pounder Parrott rifled cannon. These guns, rusted and worn, were the same type of cannon (and possibly the identical pieces) used by the Federals on Morris Island to bombard Fort Sumter from 1863 to 1865. They were buried with the casemates after Battery Huger was constructed. When the parade ground was excavated in 1959 these casemates were opened and 11 of these Parrott guns were uncovered. They are now displayed in this face. From a gun in the first-tier casemates, Capt. Abner Doubleday fired the first shot from Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861. This section also sustained the deepest penetration of Confederate shot and shell in the initial attack. Right gorge angle Officers’ QuartersA three-story brick building extended the entire length of the gorge (or back wall). In it were quarters for officers, administrative offices, storerooms, powder magazines, and guardhouse. Most of the wooden portions of the building burned during the initial Confederate bombardment in 1861. The small-arms magazine here exploded on December 11, 1863, killing 11 and wounding 41 Confederates. The explosion also tilted the arch over the magazine’s entrance. (The effects of that explosion are still visible today.) Officers’ quarters Enlisted Men’s BarracksParalleling the left flank casemates, are the ruins of a three-story enlisted men’s barracks which originally rose slightly above the fort walls. Another enlisted men’s barracks, identical to this one, was on the right flank directly opposite this wall. Enlisted men’s barracks Garrison MonumentThe U.S. Government erected this monument in 1932 “in memory of the garrison defending Fort Sumter during the bombardment of April 12-14, 1861.” The tablet contains a roster of the original garrison that served under Major Anderson. Garrison monument Mountain HowitzerConfederates used several light field pieces, like this 12-pounder mountain howitzer, to defend against a surprise assault by Union infantry troops during the 1863-65 siege. Mountain howitzer Other Points of InterestFort MoultrieThree different Fort Moultries have occupied this site. The first, a hastily constructed palmetto-log fort, was built in 1776 to protect Charleston against British attack; the second, a five-sided earth and timber fort, was completed in 1798 as part of the new Nation’s first organized system of coastal defense; and the third, a more formidable masonry structure begun after the second fort was destroyed by a hurricane in 1804, has remained structurally intact and modified only by the replacement of old weapons with new as technology changed. During the Civil War, while the struggle for Charleston Harbor centered on Fort Sumter, Fort Moultrie was far from idle and became “a very formidable enemy” to Federal forces. It powerful guns played an important role in the Confederate bombardment of Sumter in 1861. From April 1863 to February 1865, Forts Moultrie and Sumter were the chief defenders of Charleston as repeated Federal land and sea forces hammered at them. “From 1861 to 1865,” one historian has written, “Fort Moultrie found itself engaged in perhaps its strangest period of coastal vigilance: defending the Confederate States of America against the United States of America.” The fort today is part of Fort Sumter National Monument and has been restored to interpret the history of nearly 100 years of seacoast defense. From the Harbor Entrance Control Post of World War II the visitor moves steadily backward in time to the exhibit recounting the fateful attack of the British fleet against the first Fort Moultrie in 1776. The visitor center contains a display of artifacts recovered during the restoration. It also provides a film and slide show which documents the proud heritage of coastal fortifications in the United States. The grave of Seminole Chief Osceola, who died a prisoner at Moultrie in 1838, is just outside the sally port. Nearby is a monument listing the Federal sailors who died aboard the monitor Patapsco, when it was sunk in Charleston Harbor on January 15, 1865. Battery Jasper, built adjacent to Fort Moultrie in 1898, is also a part of the national monument. Named in honor of Sergeant Jasper of Revolutionary War fame, this strong seacoast defense work mounted four powerful 10-inch “disappearing” cannon and, though unimpressive in appearance, was infinitely stronger than early masonry structures built to protect Charleston Harbor before the Civil War. Fort Moultrie is about 10 miles east of Charleston on Sullivan’s Island. Follow US 17 north from the city, then take US 17 (business) to Mount Pleasant and turn right onto SC 703. From there follow the signs to the park visitor center across from the fort on Middle Street. Battery Jasper James IslandJames Island contains the site of Fort Johnson, from which the opening shot of the Civil War was fired on April 12, 1861. All that remains of the fort are an early 19th-century brick powder magazine, a commemorative marker, and traces of the Confederate earthworks of 1863-65. To reach the site, follow US 17 south from Charleston and, after crossing the Ashley River, take the Folly Island turnoff onto Folly Road (SC 171). Proceed 4.7 miles, then turn left onto Fort Johnson Road, which dead ends at the South Carolina Wildlife and Marine Resource Department. James Island Castle PinckneyCastle Pinckney, one of the first masonry casemated forts in the United States, was built in 1810. The circular structure, named for Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, a South Carolina Revolutionary War leader, was one of the first Federal installations seized by South Carolina militia on December 27, 1860. Though too far out of range to take part in any of the fighting during the Civil War years, the fort was still a vital link in the Confederate defenses of Charleston. After the war it was maintained as a harbor light station until 1929. Castle Pinckney The BatteryThe Battery, or White Point Gardens as it is more formally known, has been a public park since the 1830s and is one of Charleston’s most picturesque and historic settings. Soon after the outbreak of the Civil War, Confederate engineers erected huge earthen fortifications here which withstood the shelling of the Union guns mounted on Morris Island. The fortifications were abandoned and the heaviest guns destroyed when Charleston was evacuated in February 1865. The Battery today contains some of the most elegant structures in the city. The Battery For Further Reading
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