On Thursday, April 11, 1861, Beauregard sent three aides, Colonel James Chesnut, Jr., Captain Stephen D. Lee, and Lieutenant A. R. Chisolm to demand the surrender of the fort. Anderson declined, and the aides returned to report to Beauregard. After Beauregard had consulted the Secretary of War, Leroy Walker, he sent the aides back to the fort and authorized Chesnut to decide whether the fort should be taken by force. The aides waited for hours while Anderson considered his alternatives and played for time. At about 3 a.m., when Anderson finally announced his conditions, Colonel Chesnut, after conferring with the other aides, decided that they were "manifestly futile and not within the scope of the instructions verbally given to us". The aides then left the fort and proceeded to the nearby Fort Johnson. There, Chesnut ordered the fort to open fire on Fort Sumter.[16] On Friday, April 12, 1861, at 4:30 a.m., Confederate batteries opened fire, firing for 34 straight hours, on the fort. Edmund Ruffin, noted Virginian agronomist and secessionist, claimed that he fired the first shot on Fort Sumter. His story has been widely believed, but Lieutenant Henry S. Farley, commanding a battery of two mortars on James Island fired the first shot at 4:30 A.M
In 1861, Citadel cadets manning an artillery battery on Morris Island fired what many contend were the first hostile shots of the Civil War. That action repulsed the federal steamship Star of the West, which was carrying supplies and 200 federal troops that were dispatched by President Buchanan to reinforce Union Forces garrisoned at Fort Sumter.
During the Star of the West incident, the cadets flew as their banner a unique flag, observed by eye witnesses on the federal steamer, and described in a dispatch by a Union officer at Fort Sumter as “a flag with a red field, and a white palmetto tree.” The Big Red flag is now the official spirit flag of the South Carolina Corps of Cadets and what is believed to be the flag that flew over Morris Island in 1861 is on display at The Citadel’s Holliday Alumni Center.