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.
I dislike Lincoln’s deeds as a President. His personal life is not a problem. He was a self-made man, who became a politician. That is when he changed.
The book I cited above did say that Varina was annoyed because a magazine article said that Sarah Dorsey was helping Davis write his memoirs and that Varina wouldn't reply to Sarah's invitation to come to Beauvoir.
Varina was in Europe at that time, visiting their daughter Winnie at Carlsruhe. Twenty year old Jefferson Davis Jr was living at Beauvior with his father.
Varina writes from Carlsruhe in February 1877 that she is afraid to risk traveling yet and wants to wait until she is strong enough to go to England. She closes the letter with, "Good bye my own old dear love, my precious Banny. Your devoted Wife"
Apparently, Varina didn't like the humid Mississippi coast. I've spent most of my life along the Gulf Coast and can attest to the humidity and heat.
Varina writes her husband in July 1977 from Liverpool, "My dear Husband, I have been vainly waiting to be able to tell you when I would sail, but one hot day brought on cold skin and pain at once. I do not think I could live through the sea sickness, exhaustion -- if I thought I could, I would go to our children at once. Oh how I do long to see the baby and its Mother! ..." (Their daughter Maggie had had a baby in Memphis.)
Jefferson writes Winnie from Memphis in June 1877 about Maggie, "She has your prejudice against the sea shore, or I would persuade her to go there [Beauvoir]." He says the salt air and salt baths have helped his health, particularly his cough.
imVho, NEITHER ( and especially NOT lincoln!) is the equal of RWR, who was the GREATEST of ANY century.
actually lincoln, the TYRANT & "wee willie klintoon" were TWO of a kind as POTUS. NEITHER was HONEST,MORAL or DECENT. EITHER would do/say ANYTHING to "get ahead". BOTH were a DISGRACE to the USA & the office they besmirched.
free dixie,sw
free dixie,sw
Interesting, thanks.
It doesn’t matter if he is a hero to you or not, he saved our nation. Using the same logic with Senator Reid, are you?
Wrong all around, but amusing nonetheless.
If this is your perception of reality I don’t need to join, I already belong.
As I told another person earlier, the end does not justify the means. Lincoln destroyed the dream of the founding fathers, by violating the Constitution, and by forcing 1/2 of the country back into a union against their will. As for Senator Reid, I don’t like him either.
Come on down to Texas! (You would be welcome :)
fyi, the REVISIONISTS laugh AT anyone, who is DUMB enough to believe their KNOWING, REVISIONIST lies.
free dixie,sw
fyi, we have NICE houses (some vacant) for "peanuts" in Camp,Franklin,Upshur, Titus & several other counties in northeast TX.
also, we have:
GREAT hunting,
BETTER bass fishing (want to get your picture in the paper with a bass??? catch one OVER 17.5 pounds!),
pretty horses & fast women, "with BIG hair",
GREAT tamales/BBQ brisket/hot links/chicken fried steak,
cold beer & lots of other good things.
come on down!!!
free dixie,sw
i'd bet you think the "hillery-beast"/"the cape cod orca"/"chuckie" schumer/"plugs" biden/"stretch pelosi"/"the rev. al sharpton" is correct about the southland, too.
any part of the USA that elects the NITWIT LEFTISTS to the senate/house is NUTS & SUB-normal in IQ, imVho.
free dixie,sw
I’ve read the new book “Varina Davis.” It’s through, but it does appear the author has an agenda. The most definitive biography about Mrs. Davis, as well as Mrs. Lincoln, is “Crowns of Thorns and Roses.”
Varina Davis became my hero forever after reading it. And much of the vilification of Mary Todd Lincoln was laid to rest.
Through = thorough
Actually, I think the Hillary-Beast is a national disgrace, the cape cod orca is a drunken old fool, chuckie is a liberal blow-hard freak, stretch-pelosi is treasonous and should be impeached/imprisoned and reverand al is simply lost in the old school diatribe. I actually feel bad for sharpton, he is brainwashed. The others are simply evil.
Like I implied earlier, I believe the south is saving us today, I am ashamed to be from the northeast, frankly.
Being from there recently (Western New York State, specifically, originally), and disgracing President Lincoln from nearly 150 years ago, are very different matters. In case you haven’t noticed, and it really seems you are shortsighted in this, A LOT has changed.
I get the whole states’ rights argument, I just think you are wrong. ;-)~~
Sounds a lot like the lib argument today, sorry.
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