Posted on 04/12/2007 9:34:54 AM PDT by TexConfederate1861
On March 5, 1861, the day after his inauguration as president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln received a message from Maj. Robert Anderson, commander of the U.S. troops holding Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. The message stated that there was less than a six week supply of food left in the fort.
Attempts by the Confederate government to settle its differences with the Union were spurned by Lincoln, and the Confederacy felt it could no longer tolerate the presense of a foreign force in its territory. Believing a conflict to be inevitable, Lincoln ingeniously devised a plan that would cause the Confederates to fire the first shot and thus, he hoped, inspire the states that had not yet seceded to unite in the effort to restore the Union.
On April 8, Lincoln notified Gov. Francis Pickens of South Carolina that he would attempt to resupply the fort. The Confederate commander at Charleston, Gen.P.G.T. Beauregard, was ordered by the Confederate government to demand the evacuation of the fort and if refused, to force its evacuation. On April 11, General Beauregard delivered the ultimatum to Anderson, who replied, "Gentlemen, if you do not batter the fort to pieces about us, we shall be starved out in a few days." On direction of the Confederate government in Montgomery, Beauregard notified Anderson that if he would state the time of his evacuation, the Southern forces would hold their fire. Anderson replied that he would evacuate by noon on April 15 unless he received other instructions or additional supplies from his government. (The supply ships were expected before that time.) Told that his answer was unacceptable and that Beauregard would open fire in one hour, Anderson shook the hands of the messengers and said in parting, "If we do not meet again in this world, I hope we may meet in the better one." At 4:30 A.M. on April 12, 1861, 43 Confederate guns in a ring around Fort Sumter began the bombardment that initiated the bloodiest war in American history.
In her Charleston hotel room, diarist Mary Chesnet heard the opening shot. "I sprang out of bed." she wrote. "And on my knees--prostrate--I prayed as I never prayed before." The shelling of Fort Sumter from the batteries ringing the harbor awakened Charleston's residents, who rushed out into the predawn darkness to watch the shells arc over the water and burst inside the fort. Mary Chesnut went to the roof of her hotel, where the men were cheering the batteries and the women were praying and crying. Her husband, Col. James Chesnut, had delivered Beauregard's message to the fort. "I knew my husband was rowing around in a boat somewhere in that dark bay," she wrote, "and who could tell what each volley accomplished of death and destruction?"
Inside the fort, no effort was made to return the fire for more than two hours. The fort's supply of ammunition was ill-suited for the task at hand, and because there were no fuses for their explosive shells, only solid shot could be used against the Rebel batteries. The fort's biggest guns, heavy Columbiads and eight-inch howitzers, were on the top tier of the fort and there were no masonry casemates to protect the gunners, so Anderson opted to use only the casemated guns on the lower tier. About 7:00 A.M., Capt. Abner Doubleday, the fort's second in command, was given the honor of firing the first shot in defense of the fort. The firing continued all day, the federals firing slowly to conserve ammunition. At night the fire from the fort stopped, but the confederates still lobbed an occasional shell in Sumter.
Although they had been confined inside Fort Sumter for more than three months, unsupplied and poorly nourished, the men of the Union garrison vigorously defended their post from the Confederate bombardment that began on the morning of April 12, 1861. Several times, red-hod cannonballs had lodged in the fort's wooden barracks and started fires. But each time, the Yankee soldiers, with a little help from an evening rainstorm, had extinguished the flames. The Union garrison managed to return fire all day long, but because of a shortage of cloth gunpowder cartridges, they used just six of their cannon and fired slowly.
The men got little sleep that night as the Confederate fire continued, and guards kept a sharp lookout for a Confederate attack or relief boats. Union supply ships just outside the harbor had been spotted by the garrison, and the men were disappointed that the ships made no attempt to come to their relief.
After another breakfast of rice and salt pork on the morning of April 13, the exhausted Union garrison again began returning cannon fire, but only one round every 10 minutes. Soon the barracks again caught fire from the Rebel hot shot, and despite the men's efforts to douse the flames, by 10:00 A.M. the barracks were burning out of control. Shortly thereafter, every wooden structure in the fort was ablaze, and a magazine containing 300 pounds of gunpowder was in danger of exploding. "We came very near being stifled with the dense livid smoke from the burning buildings," recalled one officer. "The men lay prostrate on the ground, with wet hankerchiefs over their mouths and eyes, gasping for breath."
The Confederate gunners saw the smoke and were well aware of the wild uproar they were causing in the island fort. They openly showed their admiration for the bravery of the Union garrison by cheering and applauding when, after a prolonged stillness, the garrison sent a solid shot screaming in their direction.
"The crasing of the shot, the bursting of the shells, the falling of the walls, and the roar of the flames, made a pandemonium of the fort," wrote Capt. Abner Doubleday on the afternoon of April 13, 1861. He was one of the Union garrison inside Fort Sumter in the middle of South Carolina's Charleston harbor. The fort's large flag staff was hit by fire from the surrounding Confederate batteries, and the colors fell to the ground. Lt. Norman J. Hall braved shot and shell to race across the parade ground to retrieve the flag. Then he and two others found a substitute flagpole and raised the Stars and Stripes once more above the fort.
Once the flag came down, Gen. P.G.T. Beaugregard, who commanded the Confederate forces, sent three of his aides to offer the fort's commander, Union Maj. Robert Anderson, assistance in extinguishing the fires. Before they arrived they saw the garrison's flag raised again, and then it was replaced with a white flag. Arriving at the fort, Beaugregard's aides were informed that the garrison had just surrendered to Louis T. Wigfall, a former U.S. senator from Texas. Wigfall, completely unauthorized, had rowed out to the fort from Morris Island, where he was serving as a volunteer aide, and received the surrender of the fort. The terms were soon worked out, and Fort Sumter, after having braved 33 hours of bombardment, its food and ammunition nearly exhausted, fell on April 13, 1861, to the curshing fire power of the Rebels. Miraculously, no one on either side had been killed or seriously wounded.
The generous terms of surrender allowed Anderson to run up his flag for a hunderd-gun salute before he and his men evacuated the fort the next day. The salute began at 2:00 P.M. on April 14, but was cut short to 50 guns after an accidental explosion killed one of the gunners and mortally wounded another. Carrying their tattered banner, the men marched out of the fort and boarded a boat that ferried them to the Union ships outside the harbor. They were greeted as heroes on their return to the North.
So, you believe the other States could have kicked South Carolina out of the Union, without consulting it?
How hard is it for you to understand that one party to a mutual agreement cannot turn the clock back and screw over its partners unilaterally? You cannot simply "negate" a deal and remain bound by the rule of law. That's just making up the rules as you go along, backed solely by the gun to enforce your will.
In 1836, South Carolina's state government passed a law ceding all claim on Sumter. If they could negate that at will, why not every other land transfer done in 1836? Who owned the land between 1836 and 1861? Who paid for the land's very existence, not to mention the fortifications upon it? Who paid for and maintained the surrounding coastal defenses, such as Moultrie? Clearly, the Federal government did. Was there any agreement to transfer ownership from the rightful title holder? No. Was there any attempt to make such an agreement? No. Did South Carolina attempt any due process to condemn the land for eminent domain? No. Was the Federal government acting outside of its powers by supplying troops, as they had for the past 25 years and more, within its own fort, which they held complete legal title to? No.
South Carolina simply had NO legal or justifiable claim to that land, and throwing some convention to vote themselves the right unilaterally, without consulting the OWNERS of that property doesn't change that. It was simply creating a situation where it could steal title and blame the violation on Force Majeure. They were as much thieves as any tinpot dictatorship nationalizing oil refineries.
yes.....
“So, you believe the other States could have kicked South Carolina out of the Union, without consulting it?”
Yes, I do. If the citizens of each of those states voted to do so. The will of the people is ALWAYS preeminent.
There is still the idea that the crisis over Sumter was created when:
1. Anderson decided on his own to occupy Ft. Sumter. Ft. Moultrie would not have been a menace.
2. Lincoln decided to re-supply the Ft. , when the soldiers would have been forced to leave due to lack of food.
3. As I mentioned earlier, the Confederate Government was left NO choice, but to reduce the fort, because of it’s position.
B.S. Pointing a gun at someone after stealing their property and demanding they recognize the theft as legal isn't "negotiating". Nor was it the only option "the South" had. Military force was merely the only option they would consider; no one "forced" them to employ it, any more than opposing bank robbers "forces" them to shoot hostages because the bank won't agree to their unilateral seizing of the money.
If South Carolina didn't want Federal fortifications covering the harbor, they shouldn't have pushed so hard to get them, or expected the whole United States to pay for them.
It wasn't a "foreign power" holding the forts. It was the legally authorized Federal Government. There are only two ways the secession of South Carolina might have been legal. First, by following the Rule of Law and appealing to the designated arbiter, the USSC. Second, by being victorious by force of arms, followed by surrender and acknowledgment by the current legal authority. In effect, appealing the matter to God's hands. They didn't manage either path, so what they did wasn't legal. As they say in some parts, "Deo vindice".
“It wasn’t a “foreign power” holding the forts.”
As far as I and many Southerners are concerned, once secession took place, the Federal Troops WERE a foreign power. As of Dec. of 1860, to be exact.
Maybe, maybe not. But you can't deny that the actual text of the law allowed slave catchers to force any citizen, regardless of their conscience in the matter, to aid them. How is that different from forcing anyone off the street to aid in performing an abortion, regardless of their own conscience? The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, along with the overturning of the MIssouri Compromise, was one of the major items in making the north realize that they were in thrall to the slave power of the south.
*PING*
Which he did because he was menaced by military threat BY THE SOUTHERERS.
2. Lincoln decided to re-supply the Ft. , when the soldiers would have been forced to leave due to lack of food.
Which he did because he was menaced by military threat BY THE SOUTHERERS. Otherwise, the fort would have been resupplied as normal.
3. As I mentioned earlier, the Confederate Government was left NO choice, but to reduce the fort, because of it’s position.
You can claim it, but it is patently untrue. Sumter didn't threaten Charleston directly; so they could have maintained the status quo. After all, the fort did nothing to commerce that a blockade couldn't. They had many options, but decided to pursue military attack.
Your scenario falls apart right off the bat. One, there was no agreement to transfer ownership. Actual transfer of ownership had occured. The state of South Carolina had deeded the property free and clear to the federal government. They gave up all ownership so there were no obligations to be fulfilled. The frederal government had not defaulted on anything.
The fact of the matter is that there was no legal justification for the South's actions. They took property that did not belong to them without compensation. It was theft, pure and simple. There is no other description for it.
I doubt it's any more acceptable for the Cubans but to date they haven't started a war over it. The South chose to do so.
You can walk out on your spouse and consider yourself divorced. It doesn't make it so. It just means you have no regard for the rule of law.
That's government of the Fred, by the Fred and for the Fred.
1. Anderson decided on his own to occupy Ft. Sumter. Ft. Moultrie would not have been a menace.
2. Lincoln decided to re-supply the Ft. , when the soldiers would have been forced to leave due to lack of food.
3. As I mentioned earlier, the Confederate Government was left NO choice, but to reduce the fort, because of it’s position.
Oh hang it up, would you? Admit it, there was no legal justification for stealing the fort. They wanted it. They took it. they started a war over it. They lost the war they started. End of story.
In Fred we trust.
I see you’re trying to save his hometown.
like everything else you post, your IGNORANCE is laughable.
why not turn off your PC & go do some RESEARCH in the local library. if you do, you won't be a LAUGHINGSTOCK to everyone here (with the exception of "Mr SPIN" & "ftd", who will believe ANYTHING.)
free dixie,sw
If you want to do some research, go read the reactions of the north after passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, after Dred Scott, and after the caning of Sumner.
Only because they know they will LOSE.
The Confederacy wasn’t worried about it.
In this case it was an anullment, rather than a divorce.
Fred for President in 08! :)
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