Fort Sumter: The Battle Of South Carolina

The Confederates has forty-seven guns at their disposal and pummeled the fort for thirty-four hours. It took some time for the Northerners to fire back and some Southerners grew concerned they would not have a proper battle, but their fears dissipated when Abner Doubleday fired the Unions first shot of the war a few hours later. The Union would fire back occasionally but they tried to conserve their ammo and not waste it idly firing back, due to lack of munitions in the garrison. Despite the hours of bombardment from the Confederate guns Fort Sumter was taking little damage because of its twelve-foot thick

U.S. Major Robert Anderson occupied the unfinished fort in December 1860 following South Carolina’s secession from the Union, initiating a standoff with the state militia forces. When President Abraham Lincoln announced plans to resupply the fort, Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard shelled Fort Sumter in April of 1861. After a 34 hour exchange, Anderson and his soldiers surrendered the fort. Confederate troops then would come to occupy fort Sumter for almost four years, before abandoning the fort prior to William Truman’s capture of Charleston in February 1865. (The Civil War: Primary Documents on Events from 1860 to 1865, 79)

A ship called The Star of The West landed in Charleston with over 200 troops and supplies for the fort. South Carolina prepared an artillery attack on the ship, so the ship had to turn around and move out towards the sea. Soldiers on the ship kept telling him to abandon the fort, but Anderson said no to all of them. There were over 3,000 troops attacking Fort Sumter by March 1861. The South had already seized many of the facilities in the southern part of the U.S. , Fort Sumter was the last one the South wanted to

On April 12-14, 1861, the Battle of Fort Sumter happened. The location of the Battle of Fort Sumter is near Charleston, South Carolina. General P.G.T Beauregard, who was the commander of the Confederate army, ordered for the Union’s surrender of the Fort. However, Major Robert Anderson stood his front and refused to surrender which resulted in the Confederates opening fire on the Fort on April 12. Major Robert Anderson was unable to return the gunfire for the first two hours as the fort lacked ammunition and fuses. Abner DoubleDay, who was captain of the Union army, was the one who fired the first shot to defend the fort. The firing continued all day but lessened as the Union Army had to save their ammunition. On April 13, Major Robert Anderson decided to surrender the fort and it was a victory for the Confederates. There were 580 forces engaged, 80 from the Union and 500 from the Confederates. The important figures in this battle are General P.G.T Beauregard, Major Robert Anderson, Edmund Ruffin, Abner DoubleDay, Louis Wigfall, Private Daniel Hough, and Private Edward Galloway. Surprisingly, there were no casualties in this battle. It has major significance as it was the site of the first

In January 1861, Buchanan sent a supply ship to Fort Sumter; where it was fired upon. Major Anderson instructed the ship to be turned around and not to return fire. This shows that at this point, the Union was avoiding violence to avoid the outbreak of war. In March, Lincoln learnt that Sumter’s supplies would run out in 6 weeks. At first Lincoln decided to abandon Fort Sumter, but on the 4th of April Lincoln told Anderson he would send an expedition to relieve Fort Sumter. Farmer argues that

The newly independent state South Carolina fired shots at a Federal ship entering the Charleston Harbor and then proceed to bombarded Fort Sumter until it surrendered. This was the start of the Civil War and it was a result of over decades of continuous malicious tension between the South Carolina and her sister states and the North and rest of the Union. By the mid 1800s the South was able to see that they were being stripped of their state rights and control over slavery by the federal government, abolitionists, and the North. South Carolina was pushed and forced to declared herself seceded from the Union in order to protect the very lives of her citizens and ensured that their rights were not taken away. It was a last resort measure that was careful and patiently decided before declaring.

Throughout the Civil War, there is a constant reference to states. The obvious answer is that this represented the composition of the armies at that time. It also demonstrates that each military unit carrying that state representation formed a shared identity among the soldiers. The Confederate and Union armies both suffered from failures of leadership. These failures put strain on the rank and file soldiers to which they turned to their state identity, to their fellow soldiers from the same state, to maintain the rationale for their personal sacrifice and remember why they were in the war at all.

The Yanks to the north have the nerve declare war, and a blockade no less, against us over us taking what is rightfully ours! Fort Sumter is part of South Carolina and therefore the property of the Confederacy. Those Union soldiers had no right to refuse handing it over. They claim it was an act of aggression, I say we were just doing what was necessary to take what was rightfully ours. I won’t stand by while Yanks invade our land and our homes and try to tell us how we should live our lives. Tomorrow, I will leave for Richmond to join the Confederate Army. I will leave the plantation in my son’s charge. I have taught him how to manage it for when he inherits it himself. With luck, he will be able to manage it at his own discretion without a bunch of bureaucrats forcing their way into his business.

Months prior to the battle, the Confederate Army dealt a blow to the Union Army at the battle of Chancellorsville was in May 1863. At the battle of Chancellorsville Major General Joseph Hooker, who commanded the Army of the Potomac, lay in defeat by a smaller force under the command of General Robert E. Lee. The Army of the Northern Virginia had sent the Union forces retreating inflicting over 15,000 casualties. In mid June 1863, General Lee moved his army across the Potomac River for the second invasion of the North. On June 28th, General George Meade took command of the Union forces. On June 29th, the newly appointed Commander ordered his army to pursue General Lee. They would later meet at Gettysburg.

South Carolina had many important battles fought on its territory, Fort Sumter. Fort Sumter is an island in the Charleston Harbor, its main purpose for being built was to protect the harbor. The Confederacy felt like the Charleston harbor would be a key port in this area. When the first shots were fired, at Fort Sumter, by the Confederate soldiers this began one of

President Abraham Lincoln once said at Gettysburg, “Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." This reveals that our founding fathers created a home where all men of every ethnicity should be treated as an equal. This moment was after the Civil War, the bloodiest war in American History ended. It started on April 12, 1861, and ended on May 9, 1865.

“See what a lot of land these fellows hold, of which Vicksburg is the key! The war can never be brought to a close until that key is in our pocket” (Korn, 1985, p. 17). This quotation from the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, demonstrates how vital the city of Vicksburg was to the survival of the Confederacy during the Civil War. The city, which is located on the Mississippi River on the western border of Mississippi, was under Confederate control for over two years of the war, when it was surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant and his Union forces on July 4, 1863 after a successful siege. Many consider the Union takeover of Vicksburg, combined with the Union victory at the Battle of Gettysburg, which concluded just one day before, as the turning point of the war in favor of the United States.

Working with Governor Francis Pickens, Union general Major Robert Anderson was a little too ambitious with his plan to attack Fort Sumter. He rushed to put his plan into action, and didn’t allow his men or his partner to prepare for the event properly. Additionally, when his plan began to fail, he refused to surrender. This only made matters work. On the other end, Confederate general, Brigadier General P.G.T. Beauregard, began moving men and artillery into place to force

On December 20th, 1860, South Carolina seceded from the Union. During this time, 85 federal soldiers under the command of Major Robert Anderson were stationed at Fort Moultrie, which is also located near the Charleston Harbor. To protect the federal strong hold in the south, Major Anderson moved his troops to Fort Sumter in the dark of night on December 26th. When the people of Charleston heard the news of the invasion on the fort, it did not sit well with them and other Southern states. Fort Sumter was built to protect the harbor in Charleston, now it was a military threat.

South Carolina was very involved in the American War of Independence. After the war, the state's policy was dominated by the conflict between the old communities near the coast and the new areas that were expanding and that had colonized Scots and Irish. In 1790, as part of that conflict, the capital of South Carolina moved officially to the interior from Charleston to Columbia.