The FReeper Foxhole Remembers Bombardment of Fort Sumter(4/12/1861)

Repeated demands having been made upon Major Anderson, and upon the President, for the relinquishment of Fort Sumter, and these demands having been refused and the government at Washington having concluded to supply and reinforce the fort by force of arms, it was determined to summon Major Anderson to evacuate the fort, for the last time. Accordingly, on April 11th, General Beauregard sent him the following communication:

Headquarters Provisional Army, C. S. A.
Charleston, April 11, 1861.

Sir: The government of the Confederate States has hitherto foreborne from any hostile demonstrations against Fort Sumter, in hope that the government of the United States, with a view to the amicable adjustment of all questions between the two governments, and to avert the calamities of war, would voluntarily evacuate it.

There was reason at one time to believe that such would be the course pursued by the government of the United States, and under that impression my government has refrained from making any demand for the surrender of the fort. But the Confederate States can no longer delay assuming actual possession of a fortification commanding the entrance of one of their harbors and necessary to its defense and security.

I am ordered by the government of the Confederate States to demand the evacuation of Fort Sumter. My aides, Colonel Chestnut and Captain Lee, are authorized to make such demand of you. All proper facilities will be afforded for the removal of yourself and command, together with company arms and property, and all private property, to any post in the United States which you may select. The flag which you have upheld so long and with so much fortitude, under the most trying circumstances, may be saluted by you on taking it down. Colonel Chestnut and Captain Lee will, for a reasonable time, await your answer.

I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
G. T. BEAUREGARD,
Brigadier-General Commanding.

Major Anderson replied as follows:

Fort Sumter, S.C.,
April 11, 1861.

General: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your communication demanding the evacuation of this fort, and to say, in reply thereto, that it is a demand with which I regret that my sense of honor, and of my obligations to my government, prevent my compliance. Thanking you for the fair, manly and courteous terms proposed, and for the high compliment paid me,

I am, General, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
ROBERT ANDERSON,
Major, First Artillery, Commanding.

Major Anderson, while conversing with the messengers of General Beauregard, having remarked that he would soon be starved into a surrender of the fort, or words to that effect, General Beauregard was induced to address him a second letter, in which he proposed that the major should fix a time at which he would agree to evacuate, and agree also not to use his guns against the Confederate forces unless they fired upon him, and so doing, he, General Beauregard, would abstain from hostilities. To this second letter Major Anderson replied, naming noon on the 15th, provided that no hostile act was committed by the Confederate forces, or any part of them, and provided, further, that he should not, meanwhile, receive from the government at Washington controlling instructions or additional supplies.

The fleet which was to reinforce and supply him was then collecting outside the bar, and General Beauregard at once notified him, at 3:20 a. m. on the morning of the 12th of April, that he would open fire on the fort in one hour from that time. The shell which opened the momentous bombardment of Fort Sumter was fired from a mortar, located at Fort Johnson on James island, at 4:30 on the morning of the 12th.

For over three months the troops stationed on the islands surrounding Fort Sumter had been constantly employed building batteries, mounting guns, and making every preparation for the defense of the harbor, and, if necessary, for an attack on the fort if the government at Washington persisted in its refusal to order its evacuation.

Lt. Col. R. S. Ripley, an able and energetic soldier, commanded the artillery on Sullivan's island, with his headquarters at Fort Moultrie, Brigadier-General Dunovant commanding the island. Under Ripley's direction, six 10-inch mortars and twenty guns bore on Sumter. The guns were 24, 32 and 42 pounders, 8-inch columbiads and one 9-inch Dahlgren. The supports to the batteries were the First regiment of rifles, Colonel Pettigrew; the regiment of infantry, South Carolina regulars, Col. Richard Anderson; the Charleston Light Dragoons, Capt. B. H. Rutledge, and the German Flying Artillery, the latter attached to Col. Pettigrew's command, stationed at the east end of the island. These commands, with Ripley's battalion of South Carolina regular artillery and Capt. Robert Martin's mortar battery on Mount Pleasant, made up the force under General Dunovant.

On Morris island, Gen. James Simons was commanding, with Lieut.-Col. W. G. De Saussure for his artillery chief, and Maj. W. H. C. Whiting for chief of staff. The infantry supports on the island were the regiments of Cols. John Cunningham, Seventeenth South Carolina militia, and Maxey Gregg, Johnson Hagood and J. B. Kershaw, of the South Carolina volunteers. The artillery was in position bearing on Ship channel, and at Cummings point, bearing on Sumter. The fleet making no attempt to come in, the channel batteries took no part in the bombardment of Sumter.

On Cummings point, six 10-inch mortars and six guns were placed. To the command and direction of these guns, Maj. P. F. Stevens was specially assigned. One of the batteries on the point was of unique structure, hitherto unknown in war. Three 8-inch columbiads were put in battery under a roofing of heavy timbers, laid at an angle of forty degrees, and covered with railroad T iron. Portholes were cut and these protected by heavy iron shutters, raised and lowered from the inside of the battery. This battery was devised and built by Col. Clement H. Stevens, of Charleston, afterward a briga-dier-general and mortally wounded in front of Atlanta, July 20, 1864, leading his brigade. "Stevens' iron battery," as it was called, was "the first ironclad fortification ever erected," and initiated the present system of armor-plated vessels. The three mortars in battery at Port Johnson were commanded by Capt. G. S. James. The batteries above referred to, including Fort Moultrie, contained fifteen 10-inch mortars and twenty-six guns of heavy caliber.

For thirty-four hours they assaulted Sumter with an unceasing bombardment, before its gallant defenders consented to give it up, and not then until the condition of the fort made it impossible to continue the defense. Port Moultrie alone fired 2,490 shot and shell. Gen. S. W. Crawford, in his accurate and admirable book, previously quoted, thus describes the condition of Sumter when Anderson agreed to its surrender:

"It was a scene of ruin and destruction. The quarters and barracks were in ruins. The main gates and the planking of the windows on the gorge were gone;the magazines closed and surrounded by smouldering flames and burning ashes; the provisions exhausted; much of the engineering work destroyed; and with only four barrels of powder available. The command had yielded to the inevitable. The effect of the direct shot had been to indent the walls, where the marks could be counted by hundreds, while the shells, well directed, had crushed the quarters, and, in connection with hot shot, setting them on fire, had destroyed the barracks and quarters down to the gun casemates, while the enfilading fire had prevented the service of the barbette guns, some of them comprising the most important battery in the work. The breaching fire from the columbiads and the rifle gun at Cummings point upon the right gorge 'angle, had progressed sensibly and must have eventually succeeded if continued, but as yet no guns had been disabled or injured at that point. The effect of the fire upon the parapet was pronounced. The gorge, the right face and flank as well as the left face, were all taken in reverse, and a destructive fire maintained until the end, while the gun carriages on the barbette of the gorge were destroyed in the fire of the blazing quarters."

The spirit and language of General Beauregard in communicating with Major Anderson, and the replies of the latter, were alike honorable to those distinguished soldiers. The writer, who was on duty on Sullivan's island, as major of Pettigrew's regiment of rifles, recalls vividly the sense of admiration felt for Major Anderson and his faithful little command throughout the attack, and at the surrender of the fort. "While the barracks in Fort Sumter were in a blaze," wrote General Beauregard to the secretary of war at Montgomery, "and the interior of the work appeared untenable from the heat and from the fire of our batteries (at about which period I sent three of my aides to offer assistance), whenever the guns of Fort Sumter would fire upon Moultrie, the men occupying the Cummings point batteries (Palmetto Guard, Captain Cuthbert) at each shot would cheer Anderson for his gallantry, although themselves still firing upon him; and when on the 15th instant he left the harbor on the steamer Isabel, the soldiers of the batteries lined the beach, silent and uncovered, while Anderson and his command passed before them."

Thus closed the memorable and momentous attack upon Fort Sumter by the forces of South Carolina, and thus began the war which lasted until April, 1865, when the Southern Confederacy, as completely ruined and exhausted by fire and sword as Fort Sumter in April, 1861, gave up the hopeless contest and reluctantly accepted the inevitable.

Beauregard Reports The Fall Of Fort Sumter

His Official Communication to Jefferson Davis

[GENERAL BEAUREGARD, who made this official report to President Jefferson Davis, had taken command of the Confederate forces at Charleston, South Carolina, on resigning from the superintendency of West Point, February 20, 1861. His was the distinction of having thus begun the Civil War. Beauregard had graduated at West Point in 1838. He distinguished himself in the Mexican War, and prior to the Civil War had been captain of engineers in fortifying Mobile and New Orleans. There is some discrepancy between Beauregard's statement, in this report, that Major Anderson had refused "to designate the time when he would evacuate Fort Sumter, and to agree meanwhile not to use his guns against us," and Anderson's, pledge to "evacuate Fort Sumter by noon on the 15th instant (April, 1861), and I will not in the meantime open my fires upon your forces, unless compelled to do so by some hostile act..."]

SIR: I have the honor submit the following summary statement of the circumstances of the surrender of Fort Sumter: On the refusal of Major Anderson to engage, in compliance with my demand, to designate the time when he would evacuate Fort Sumter, and to agree meanwhile not to use his guns against us, at 3:20 o'clock in the morning of the 12th instant I gave him formal notice that within one hour my batteries would open on him. In consequence of some circumstance of delay the bombardment was not begun precisely at the appointed moment, but at 4:30 o'clock the signal gun was fired, and within twenty minutes all our batteries were in full play. There was no response from Fort Sumter until about 7 o'clock, when the first shot from the enemy was discharged against our batteries on Cummings Point.

By 8 o'clock the action became general, and throughout the day was maintained by spirit on both sides. Our guns were served with skill and energy. The effect was visible in the impressions made on the walls of Fort Sumter. From our mortar batteries shells were thrown with such precision and rapidity that it soon became impossible for the enemy to employ his gun "en barbette," of which several were dismounted. The engagement was continued without any circumstance of special note until night fall before which time the fire from Sumter had evidently slackened. Operations on our side were sustained through' out the night, provoking, however, only a feeble response.

On the morning of the 13th the action was prosecuted with renewed vigor, and about 7:30 o'clock it was discovered our shells had set fire to the barracks in the fort. Speedily volumes of smoke indicated an extensive conflagration, and apprehending some terrible calamity to the garrison, I immediately dispatched an offer of assistance to Major Anderson which, however, with grateful acknowledgments, he declined. Meanwhile, being informed about 2 o'clock that a white flag was displayed from Sumter, I dispatched two of my aides to Major Anderson with terms of evacuation. In recognition of the gallantry exhibited by the garrison I cheerfully agreed that on surrendering the fort the commanding officer might salute his flag.

By 8 o'clock the terms of evacuation were definitely accepted. Major Anderson having expressed a desire to communicate with the United States vessels lying off the harbor, with a view to arranging for the transportation of his command to some port in the United States, one of his officers, accompanied by Captain Hartstene and three of my aides, was permitted to visit the officer in command of the squadron to make provision for that object. Because of an unavoidable delay the formal transfer of the fort to our possession did not take place until 4 o'clock in the afternoon of the 14th instant. At that hour, the place having been evacuated by the United States garrison, our troops occupied it, and the Confederate flag was hoisted on the ramparts of Sumter with a salute from the various batteries.

The steamer "Isabel" having been placed at the service of Major Anderson, he and his command were transferred to the United States vessels off the harbor...

I remain, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
G. T. BEAUREGARD,
Brigadier-General, Commanding,
Headquarters Provisional Army, C. S. A.,
Charleston, S. C.,
April 16, 1861.

Additional Sources:

www.dointhecharlestontours.com
www.oldworldauctions.com
members.aol.com/confederatesite
www.tulane.edu/~latner
ngeorgia.com/history
www.civilwarartillery.com
www.lib.niu.edu
www.multied.com
www.us-civilwar.com
www.bergen.org/civilwar
earlyamerica.com

Fort Sumter - who fired the first shot

Fort Sumter, surrounded by the waters of Charleston Harbor, with guns that frowned on the hrabour entrances, was like an irritating splinter in the eye of the Confederacy. Southern representatives went to Washington to negotiate with outgoing President Buchanan . . . slow to take action, Buchanan decided . . . to follow the advice of his commanding General, Windfield Scott and authorized supplies and reinforcements of some 250 troops to the garrison of Fort Sumter. . . they decided to use ships for the purpose and sent the merchant vessel, Star of the West, which arrived on January 5 off the bar of Cahrleston Harbor. As she made her way across the black waters, rockets and signal lights were fired off in front of her. Carolinian gunners dashed to their guns recently set up in Fort Moutrie. Untrained, they did little damage to the ship, although a richochet struck the ship's forechains. Yet, they managed to turn the ship back.

On Fort Sumter, the commander and Kentuckian, Colonel Richard Anderson forebade his men from giving cover fire to the ship. He was determined not to fire the shot that would start the Civil War. He sent a protest to the governor of South Carolina who responded that the arrival of such a ship was to be considered a hostile act.

On February 18 Jefferson Davis was inaugerated President of the Confederate States . . . and decided to send a diplomatic mission to Washington seeking removal of the annoying garrison at Fort Sumter. On March 1 he named General P. G. T. Beauregard cammander of the area. On March 4 Lincoln was sworn in and quickly decided to reinforce the fort.

On hearing this, Confederate officials placed their men on alert. On April 11 they sent word to Ft Sumter commander Anderson a demand for surrender. He declined but he let it be known that he was short of supplies and might have to abandon the fort within days. Confederate officials wanted to know when he would leave. He told them no sooner than the 15th unless he was resupplied and that he would not fire unless fired upon. The Confederates responded with - leave by the 12th or suffer a barrage.At 4:30 am on the 12th, Southern batteries opened fire on the brick walls of Fort Sumter. A few hours later, Union cannon responded.

So, in either case, the firing at the supply ship Star of the West or the Fort itself, the Confederates fired first.

The Star of the West Monument

The Star of the West Monument is dedicated to the memory of the cadets who fired on the Star of the West in 1861 and to all Citadel graduates who have died in defense of their country.
The granite monument was raised in the spring of 1961, 100 years after Citadel cadets fired on the federal supply ship from the northern point of Morris Island.
A bronze plaque depicts the action. Cadets were chosen to man the 24-pound siege guns because they were the best-trained men in Charleston to fire the weapons. Inscribed on the monument are the names of those cadets who have won the Star of the West Medal for individual drill competition. The monument is located between Bond Hall and the central flagpole.

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