150 Years Ago: Fort Sumter Surrenders

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At 2:30 p.m., on Saturday, April 13, 1861, Major Robert Anderson, commanding the Union garrison at Fort Sumter, surrendered to Confederate officials, ending a 34-hour bombardment.

The attack on Fort Sumter began the previous day, April 12, at 4:30 a.m.  With a relief expedition on the way to the fort -- some of the ships were already hovering just outside the harbor -- General P. G. T. Beauregard demanded the surrender of the fort.  There were some exchanges back and forth, but, in the end, the Civil War would begin here with Beauregard demanding a surrender that Anderson could not give without a fight.

A signal gun was fired at 4:30 a.m. and then the Confederates batteries that surrounded Sumter began their bombardment.  The puzzling thing to them was that the Union garrison was not firing back.  Anderson kept his men under cover, out of harm's way until daylight.  Even then, there was not much that he could do.

Fort Sumter sat on a man-made granite island in the middle of Charleston harbor.  Its walls were forty feet high and five feet thick.  It was designed to hold three tiers of guns.  The lower two tiers were in casements -- each gun was fully protected by thick masonry and fired through a small gunport, an embrasure.  The third tier was around the top of the fort on the barbette, completely in the open.

Unfortunately for Anderson, only 48 guns had been mounted in the unfinished fort.  The second tier was empty.  The casement guns in the lower tier, though fully protected, were the weakest.  These were 32-pounders and 42-pounders that could only fire solid shot which was ineffective against any of the Confederate batteries that were firing at the fort.  Anderson's strongest guns, Columbiads and eight-inch howitzers, were those that were most exposed.

Anderson's garrison was woefully undermanned.  He had 128 men, including 43 civilians, and he couldn't afford to lose any of them.  His biggest worry then was that Beauregard might attempt to send out the infantry and try to storm the fort after dark.  Manning the guns on the barbette was out of the question.  Anderson's men hunkered down and stuck to the ineffective casement guns.

The barbette guns were loaded though and were used in two incidents.  First, a sergeant crept up to the barbette and fired every gun that was aimed at Fort Moultrie, then hurried back downstairs.  Later, two sergeants went up top and fired a ten-inch Columbiad at Cummings Point.  It was a near miss, so they reloaded and tried another shot even though they couldn't move the 7.5-ton gun back into the proper firing position.  The recoil blew the huge gun in a backward somersault and sent it crashing down the stairs.

An English Whitworth gun on Morris Island blew big hunks out of the southeast corner of the fort before it finally ran out of ammunition.  Shell and red-hot shot set the wooden barracks on fire, and fire-fighting details worked furiously in the choking smoke with shells bursting above them.

Just outside the harbor, Captain Gustavus Fox, the mastermind of the relief expedition, had arrived.  He was going to supply the fort and wanted an escort.  Commander Stephen Rowan of the Pawnee refused.  He had orders to wait for the Powhatan and didn't want to risk starting a war.  No one knew that the war had already begun or that the Powhatan was on its way to Pensacola.  When it finally became evident that the battle had begun, the decision was made to wait on the Powhatan, then force their way in.  In the end, the absence of the ship did not matter; the seas were too rough to enter the harbor.

That night, the Confederate bombardment slowed.  They lobbed a shell at the fort every few minutes though just to keep everyone on their toes.  When daylight came on the 13th, the Confederate bombardment increased again, and the situation in the fort quickly went from bad to worse.  Supplies were already low.  Now they were short of water.  The officers' quarters were destroyed.  Fires broke out again and the casements filled with smoke.

The end was a little farcical.  Sometime around noon the flagstaff was shot down.  Lieutenant G. W. Snyder and Sergeant Peter Hart improvised a new one and mounted it to a gun carriage on the barbette.  The Confederates saw the flag go down, and Beauregard sent an aide to the fort under a flag of truce to offer assistance.  This was a tactful way of suggesting that it might be time to surrender.  The aide, Captain Stephen Lee, accompanied by two civilians, Porcher Miles and Roger Pryor, set out for the fort.  When they saw the flag hoisted again, they turned to go back to the shore.  Then the flag was lowered and a white flag was hoisted in its place.  They hurried to the fort to see what was going on.

From The Coming Fury by Bruce Catton:

"During the height of the contest, while Lieutenant Snyder and Sergeant Hart struggled to get the flag flying, and the gun crews stumbled through the smoke to maintain some sort of fire, a cannoneer in a lower-tier casement, going to the muzzle of his piece to reload, saw a strange fellow looking in the embrasure -- a burly civilian with a swarthy, piratical face, red sash and sword belt incongruously belted about his middle, a naked sword with white flag knotted about the blade gripped in one hand -- altogether a wholly improbable-looking figure.  This man announced that he was Colonel Wigfall, recently United States Senator from Texas, now an aide to General Beauregard; he wanted to see Major Anderson, and he wanted even more to get safely inside the fort because he was at the moment squarely in the line of Confederate fire -- 'Damn it, they are firing at me from Fort Moultrie.'  After a certain amount of discussion he was led to Major Anderson...Colonel Wigfall addressed the Federal commander with bluff heartiness:

"'Major Anderson, I come from General Beauregard. It is time to put a stop to this, sir. The flames are raging all around you and you have defended your flag gallantly. Will you evacuate, sir?'

"The major was ready to call it quits...Anderson said he would surrender on the terms originally proposed -- that he be allowed to salute his flag and then, with all the honors of war, take his men and their personal property back to New York. Wigfall said that this was a deal: 'Lower your flag, and the firing will cease. I will see General Beauregard and you military men will arrange all the terms.'...Down came the United States flag, and up went the white flag of surrender.

At this point Captain Lee and his two civilian companions got to the fort. Presented to Major Anderson, Lee said that Beauregard had sent them to offer assistance, if assistance happened to be needed, and to find out what all of this raising and lowering of flags meant. Anderson, puzzled, explained that he had just surrendered to Colonel Wigfall, whereupon his three visitors exchanged baffled looks; then they explained that although Wigfall did belong to Beauregard's staff, he had not seen the general for two days and had come to the fort strictly on his own hook. Anderson muttered: 'Gentlemen, this is a very awkward business,' which stated the case accurately; he had just surrendered to a man who had no authority either to demand or to receive a surrender. Anderson ordered the white flag hauled down and the national flag raised; the fighting would be resumed."

But it all worked out in the end.  Lee suggested a ceasefire until he could get in touch with Beauregard.  Anderson wrote out his understanding of the surrender terms he had made with Wigfall, and Lee hurried off to see Beauregard.  He returned a couple of hours later and the surrender was official.  The fighting was over, at least here in Charleston harbor.

150 Years Ago: The Rhoda H. Shannon

With rumors flying around Charleston that the Federal government was soon going to make an attempt to reinforce and resupply Fort Sumter, the Rhoda H. Shannon blundered onto the scene on Wednesday, April 3, 1861, and almost started a war.

Captain Joseph Marts, the captain of the Rhoda H. Shannon, a private schooner out of Boston, had 180 tons of ice to deliver to Savannah.  He thought he had reached his destination; the Charleston lighthouse guided him into what he thought was Tybee Roads, off the coast of Savannah. 

As the schooner went past what Captain Marts thought was Tybee Island, but was actually Morris Island, a shot streaked across his bow.  Thinking this was a warning to show his colors, Marts did exactly the wrong thing to do in Charleston harbor in April of 1861:  he hoisted the Stars and Stripes.  Thinking this was the attempt to reinforce Fort Sumter, the guns at Morris Island opened fire on the ship.  Marts, not knowing what this was all about, lowered his colors and continued on until a shot ripped through his mainsail.  With that, he turned and headed back the way he had come.

At Fort Sumter, Major Robert Anderson's drums called his men to quarters and the guns were readied.  At least five of his officers urged him to open fire on the Confederate battery.  Anderson hesitated until the Rhoda H. Shannon was gone.  Inquiries were made with the Confederate authorities on shore and the schooner, which was now anchored just inside the bar of the harbor.  Finally, the situation was resolved and the ship continued on its way.  The war had been averted yet another day.

Also on this date, and also in South Carolina, the state convention met and approved the Confederate Constitution 114 to 16.

150 Years Ago: Hurlbut and Lamon Visit Charleston

On Sunday, March 24, 1861, Lincoln's other two emissaries, Stephen Hurlbut and Ward Lamon, both old friends of Lincoln's, arrive in Charleston.  Hurlbut and Lamon traveled together, but parted ways once they reached the city.

Hurlbut's mission was to take the pulse of the people of Charleston and of South Carolina.  After meeting with James Petigru, one of the few Union men still in the state, Hurlbut reported back to Lincoln that "there is positively nothing to appeal to -- the sentiment of national patriotism, always feeble in Carolina, has been extinguished and over-ridden."

Hurlbut thought that the situation was hopeless.  Nothing would satisfy Charlestonians except surrender of the fort and recognition of South Carolina's independence.

Lamon met with Governor Francis Pickens and General P. G. T. Beauregard, who commanded the troops arrayed against Fort Sumter.  Lamon probably complicated the already complicated situation.  He was seen by both Southern leaders as the president's authorized agent and gave both men the idea that the fort might soon be surrendered.

Lamon's report to Lincoln was as bleak as Hurlbut's.  He brought back a message from Pickens that "nothing can prevent war except the acquiescence of the President of the United States in secession and his unalterable resolve not to attempt any reinforcement of the Southern forts."

January 13, 1861

Before he became the governor of South Carolina and started threatening war with the United States, Francis Pickens had been the U.S. Minister to Russia.  On Sunday, January 13, 1861, Pickens submitted a bill to the U.S. government for $3000 in travel expenses he had incurred in the performance of his duties.  Washington sent him a draft (a check) drawn on the Treasury office in Charleston, which had already been taken over by the state.

January 9, 1861: War Is Narrowly Averted

The Civil War almost began on Wednesday, January 9, 1861, when the Star of the West was fired upon in Charleston harbor.

The Star of the West, a merchant steamer full of supplies and reinforcements for Fort Sumter which had set sail from New York on January 5, arrived at the entrance to Charleston harbor around midnight.  As soon as there was enough light to see, the ship headed into the harbor.

Gunners on Morris Island, cadets from the Citadel, began firing at the ship.  One shot smashed into the side of the Star of the West.  A steamer flying the U.S. flag and carrying U.S. troops had been fired upon and hit.

The commander at Fort Sumter, Major Robert Anderson, didn't know what was going on.  He was unaware that a relief ship was even on the way, but he and his men could see that the Charlestonians were preparing for something.  The War Department had sent a telegraph explaining the situation and giving him orders to return fire "should a fire, likely to prove injurious, be opened upon any vessel bringing up re-enforcements or supplies, or upon row-boats within the reach of your guns."  The message never reached Anderson and now he held his fire and certainly averted a war.  With Fort Sumter's guns silent the Star of the West had no choice but to turn around and head back out to open sea.

The garrison at Fort Sumter was in an uproar.  The officers and men were furious that Anderson had not returned fire.  Anderson met with the officers and they agreed to write to Governor Francis Pickens.  If he had authorized the attack, Anderson might close down the harbor.

Pickens replied that South Carolina was an independent nation and that putting troops in Fort Sumter and then sending in reinforcements was an act of aggression.  The firing was justified.  If Anderson must now use his guns to close down the harbor, the responsibility was his own.

Pickens added, "Your position in this harbor has been tolerated by the the authorities of the State, and...it is not perceived how far the conduct which you propose to adopt can find a parallel in the history of any country, or be reconciled with any other purpose of your Government than that of imposing upon this State the condition of a conquered province.

Also on this date, Mississippi became the first state to follow South Carolina out of the Union.  A state convention in Mississippi voted for secession 84-to-15.

January 5, 1861: The Star of the West Sets Sail

On Saturday, January 5, 1861, in New York, the Star of the West, a merchant vessel, sailed for Fort Sumter with supplies and 250 troops.

The original plan called for the Brooklyn to be used.  The Brooklyn, a 2000-ton, propeller-driven warship, boasted 22 9-inch Dahlgren smoothbores and two rifled pivot guns.  It could muscle its way into Charleston harbor if necessary.

But the plan changed.  The War Department decided to try speed and secrecy instead.

The Star of the West, a side-wheel merchant steamer normally on a New York-to-New Orleans run, was chartered for $1250 a day.  The soldiers and supplies were quietly loaded.  To the casual observer the steamer appeared to be leaving on its regular run.

Officials in Charleston got the news almost immediately.  By the time the Star of the West would arrive at Charleston harbor, Major Robert Anderson and the garrison at Fort Sumter would be the only ones who didn't know what was going on.

Also on this date, in Alabama, which hadn't yet left the Union, state authorities captured Forts Morgan and Gaines at Mobile Bay without resistance.

December 20, 1860: Secession

So now the nation was in a period of transition.  Abraham Lincoln would be the next president of the United States, but would not take office until March 4, 1861.  President James Buchanan's term was coming to an end.  He was a lame duck just marking time.

Even before the election, fire-eaters (and even much more moderate men) in the South recognized what Lincoln's election would mean and began threatening secession if the election did not go as they wanted.  Before the election, such talk was dismissed as mere idle threats.  Now, with Lincoln's election an accomplished fact, the talk of secession was taken more seriously.

From The Coming Fury by Bruce Catton:

But there was still deep confusion and bewilderment, and in such times men of intense singleness of purpose can often drive through to their chosen goal and compel their fellows to trail along after them. The Southern men who, in November of 1860, proposed secession and the creation of a new nation had the advantage of knowing precisely what they wanted and of standing for immediate, emotion-releasing action. Those who counseled delay and full exploration of the possibilities of compromise were using the kind of talk that should have been (but was not) voiced in the presidential campaign; now it came too late, it had no force in it, and state and regional patriotism were generating a pressure that made it sound empty.

Lincoln had not advocated interfering with slavery in the states where it already existed. What put him at odds with the South was his stance on slavery in the territories. Lincoln vehemently opposed any expansion of slavery; if it could be contained where it was, it would eventually wither and die.  Some of those who wanted secession envisioned a new nation that stretched across the South and on into Cuba and Central and South America.

Also, to quote Alexander Stephens, Lincoln's election would "put the institutions of nearly half the states under the ban of public opinion and natural condemnation."  The mere existence of an administration hostile to slavery would spell eventual doom for the institution.

It had reached the point where Lincoln was already considering how to maintain the Union:  "My own impression is, at present (leaving myself room to modify the opinion, if upon a further investigation I should see fit to do so) that this government possesses both the authority and the power to maintain its own integrity.  That however is not the ugly point of the matter.  The ugly part is the necessity of keeping the government together by force, as ours should be a government of fraternity."

Secession threats were nothing new.  They had come at various times as different crises had arisen.  The last serious threat of secession had come in 1850 when the proposed admission of California and New Mexico to the Union as free states had caused regional strife.  Southern states sent delegates to a convention in Nashville.  It came to nothing, defused by the Compromise of 1850, but South Carolina delegates left Nashville convinced that cooperative action with other slave states was not the answer.  At the next crisis they would act alone and the other slave states would be forced to follow their lead.

This was the crisis and South Carolina was ready to act.  On October 12, 1860, Governor William H. Gist called the South Carolina legislature into special session.  This was all routine.  South Carolina was the only state whose people did not vote in presidential elections; the legislature decided where the state's electoral vote would go.  But Governor Gist advised the legislature to remain in session until the result of the election was known.  If Lincoln was elected, the legislature was advised to summon a state convention to consider secession.

The convention was called to order on December 17 in the state capital, Columbia.  Smallpox was rampant in the city at the time and the delegates voted to reconvene in Charleston and adjourned.  They arrived in Charleston the following afternoon. On Thursday, December 20, 1860, the convention heard the report from the Committee to Prepare an Ordinance of Secession:

We, the people of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained, that the Ordinance adopted by us in Convention of 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 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.

There was no debate. The motion was put to a vote and passed 169-0.

As predicted, the other Deep South states followed South Carolina's lead. Mississippi seceded on January 9, 1861. Florida seceded the following day, and Alabama the day after that. Georgia seceded on January 19, Louisiana on January 26 and Texas on February 1.

December 8, 1860: Maintaining the Status Quo

On Saturday, December 8, 1860, most of South Carolina's Congressional delegation met with President James Buchanan.  They worked out an agreement to keep the federal military presence in the state as it was, that the garrison at Fort Moultrie in Charleston would be neither reinforced nor attacked.

The agreement was put in writing the next day in a letter from the South Carolina Congressmen to Buchanan:

"In compliance with our statement to you yesterday, we now express to you our strong convictions that neither the constituted authorities nor any body of the people of the State of South Carolina will either attack or molest the U.S. Forts in the harbor of Charleston previously to the action of the convention, and we hope & believe not until an offer has been made through an accredited Representative to negotiate for an amicable arrangement of all matters between the State and the Federal government, provided that no reinforcements shall be sent into these Forts & their relative military status remains as at present."

November 15, 1860: Anderson Takes Command in Charleston

On Thursday, November 15, 1860, Major Robert Anderson took command of the small garrison at Charleston, South Carolina.  Anderson replaced Colonel John L. Gardner of Massachusetts.

The Charleston garrison -- 10 officers and 64 enlisted men of Companies E and H of the U.S. First Artillery and the regimental band -- were all at Fort Moultrie, then the only active military base in the harbor.  The other forts were either obsolete or unfinished.

South Carolina state authorities put their secession plans in motion early in November of 1860, almost immediately upon the election of Abraham Lincoln, and the federal property in the state, everything from the forts that guarded Charleston harbor to the courthouses and post offices, quickly became a major issue.  The state's leaders wanted the United States to vacate the property or at least negotiate a sale price. 

The Buchanan War Department was trying to placate the Charlestonians by replacing Gardner with Anderson, a Kentuckian.  Gardner had started a major row by attempting to move a supply of arms from the Federal arsenal in the town to Fort Moultrie.  On November 7, he sent an officer ashore with a boat to move the arms, but a large crowd gathered at the wharf to prevent the transfer.  Soon, most of Charleston was protesting to Washington.

Anderson, 56, was a 35-year veteran of the army.  He graduated from West Point in 1825, 15th in his class.  He fought in the Black Hawk and Seminole Wars, then in the Mexican War where he was wounded at Molino Del Rey.  In peace time, he served on War Department boards and translated several French texts on artillery into West Point instruction manuals.  He had a reputation as an industrious and energetic officer. 

October 5, 1860: Governor Gist Writes to Other Southern Governors

As Election Day 1860 approached, it became more and more apparent that Abraham Lincoln was going to be elected president.  The young Republican Party still needed to sweep most of the Northern states, to win all the states they won in 1856 plus a couple more.  They had their sights set on Pennsylvania and Indiana.  Those states held elections for state offices in October and Republicans won handily, virtually guaranteeing that the states would also go to Lincoln in November.

On Friday, October 5, 1860, Governor William Henry Gist of South Carolina drafted letters to the governors of the cotton states.  In the letters, he virtually guaranteed that South Carolina would secede and wanted to know what their states would do.  He proposed "concert of action, which is so essential to success."  He declared that if any other state seceded, South Carolina would join them.  If not, South Carolina would go it alone if he could be assured that other states would follow.  The letters were delivered by his much younger cousin, States' Rights Gist.

From Bruce Catton's The Coming Fury:

The governors were by no means unrestrained in their enthusiasm when they wrote their replies.  As political veterans they could not get very far ahead of local sentiment, and local sentiment had not yet hardened.  Governor John W. Ellis, of North Carolina, wrote that the people of his state simply had not made up their minds what to do in case Lincoln should be elected:  "Some favor submission, some resistance, and others would await the course of events that might follow."  They probably would not think a Republican victory, in itself, proper cause for leaving the Union, although they would never support "the monstrous doctrine of coercion."  From Louisiana came similar words.  Governor Thomas O. Moore would need more than "the deplorable event" of a Republican victory to make him advise secession, and he believed most people in Louisiana felt the same way.  He did think that Louisiana should meet with other slave states to "endeavor to effect a complete harmony of action," but he feared this harmony would be hard to get.  To be sure, if the Federal government tried coercion, the case would be different; meanwhile, Louisiana was totally unprepared "for any warlike measures," and her arsenals were empty.

Mississippi was a different case. Governor John J. Pettus felt that his people would do anything in their power to keep the state "from passing under the Black Republican yoke," but Mississippi could not go it alone. He would call a special session of the legislature as soon as it was known that Lincoln had won the election, and he believed Mississippi would ask a council of the slave states; if such a council advised secession, Mississippi would probably go along. In Georgia, Governor Joseph E. Brown believed that a convention of the people, meeting sometime between election day and March 4, would determine the state's course of action. In his opinion the people would "wait for an overt act" rather than vote to go out of the Union, regardless of what other states might do, simply because Lincoln was elected. Still, "events not yet foreseen" might lead to more immediate action. Governor Andrew B. Moore, of Alabama, favored consultation among cotton-state executives. He did not think Alabama would secede alone, but "if two or more states will cooperate with her she will secede with them; or if South Carolina or any other Southern State should go out alone and the Federal Government should attempt to use force against her, Alabama will immediately rally to her rescue." Governor M. S. Perry, of Florida, felt that Florida could not take the lead in secession, "but will most assuredly cooperate with or follow the lead of any single Cotton State which may secede." A state convention would be called as soon as Lincoln's election became a fact; meanwhile, "if there is sufficient manliness at the South to strike for our rights, honor and safety, in God's name let it be done before the inauguration of Lincoln."

Presumably these men knew how the people in their states were thinking, and it is clear that even in the heart of the cotton belt a majority was not yet ready to secede and would not consider Lincoln's election adequate reason for secession. But the majority by now was at the mercy of events. It had been brought -- by fear, by suspicion, and by anger -- to a point just one step short of the final act; the smallest accident, the most casual misstep by some politician in Washington, might compel it to take that last step. Nor would it be necessary for the majority in all of the Southern states to be won over. The sense of regional solidarity had immense power, and where one state led, other states might well follow.

South Carolina would lead. Governor Gist would see to it.