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.
P.S. — President Abraham Lincoln ROCKED. Jefferson Davis? Not so much.
“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.””
Mary Chestnut would have been sent to the Betty Ford clinic had she been around in current times.
True indeed! :)
True indeed! :)
I have a copy of her ‘diary’. The amount of opium she used on a regular basis is pretty stunning. The fact she didn’t kill herself via it is also surprising. By the time I finished reading it, I felt sorry for her husband....(chuckle)
Many women up until the 1950’s used “paragoric” for the “Vapors” on a regular basis. It’s primary ingredient is opium. A funny story that is in my family, is that one of my great-great grandmothers was addicted to it. My Great-Grandfather started one of the first and most original drug treatment programs. He went to every druggist in the County, and threatened to open up a “can ofd Whup*ss” on the next one that sold her any. :)
It worked. :)
Perhaps you could provide a citation for this estrangement. You certainly couldn't tell that from their correspondence when he traveled on business over those years. See Jefferson Davis, Private Letters 1823-1889 by Hudson Strode. The letters are full of affection for each other and occasional comments about Varina's feeble health.
Something I need not worry about happening from one of your posts.
My Great-Grandfather started one of the first and most original drug treatment programs. He went to every druggist in the County, and threatened to open up a “can ofd Whup*ss” on the next one that sold her any. :)
It worked. :)
Could use a bit of that today.
Second, if you do your novel about Davis and his wife be sure to include the estrangement between the two that dated from the mid-1860s and lasted until his death.
Perhaps you could provide a citation for this estrangement. You certainly couldn’t tell that from their correspondence when he traveled on business over those years. See Jefferson Davis, Private Letters 1823-1889 by Hudson Strode. The letters are full of affection for each other and occasional comments about Varina’s feeble health.
Not to mention they are all interned at the Hollywood cemetary in Richmond.
Like you, I never once heard of any ‘estrangement’, quite the contrary actually.
lincoln's motives were POWER, MONEY & EGOMANIA, none of which made his invasion of dixie JUST or necessary.
pity that they didn't teach you anything but the myth in school daze.
dixie,sw
dixie,sw
Noni:
I think everyone concerned is well aware of your dislike for Jefferson Davis. You might want to consider the fact that even though he didn’t make a great President, he was still a very good, and kind man, was a great Sec. of War, and is still loved throughout the South. You can dislike his Presidency without slandering the man.
Davis did have his kindly, sentimental side, but "warm" isn't a word I'd use to describe him. It may have been a side he showed to friends, but how much of that did the public see? For that matter, how much of a politician's emotional life should the public see?
One of the things I like most about him was the fact he was not a politician, he would not log roll.
Of course Jefferson Davis was very much a political man, if politics is defined as ambition for power and public office. He just didn't like to compromise much.
If you do your novel about Davis and his wife be sure to include the estrangement between the two that dated from the mid-1860s and lasted until his death.
It would be interesting to find out more about that.
In any event it looks to me like Varina's first impression of Jeff was right:
The first encounter did, however, make a memorable impression on her. She wrote her mother soon after their meeting: "I do not know whether this Mr. Jefferson Davis is young or old. He looks both at times; but I believe he is old, for from what I hear he is only two years younger than you are [the rumor was correct]. He impresses me as a remarkable kind of man, but of uncertain temper, and has a way of taking for granted that everybody agrees with him when he expresses an opinion, which offends me; yet he is most agreeable and has a peculiarly sweet voice and a winning manner of asserting himself. The fact is, he is the kind of person I should expect to rescue one from a mad dog at any risk, but to insist upon a stoical indifference to the fright afterward."
How come that doesn't work with y'all and Abraham Lincoln?
ROTFLMAO! I suppose Lincoln snuck ashore in the dead of night and fired off the first cannon at Sumter, huh?
Are you quoting Orwell? President Lincoln was our 2nd best, next to George Washington. Sorry you’ll never see the light.
‘president’ Davis? Ahhh hahahahahahahah . . . LMAO . . . HA HAHAHAHAHA . . . ahhh . . . I forgot, southerners are still good for a laugh. There’s a rather critical highway not far from where I live named ‘Jefferson Davis Highway’, presumably named after your boy. They too seemed to have forgotten the ‘president’ portion of his name. Hee hee hee.
Let ME second Watie’s opinion.
Lincoln may be a hero to Yankees, but he isn’t in the South.
And Lincoln won’t ever come close to Washington.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.