With Fort Sumter in Confederate hands, the port of Charleston became an irritating loophole in the Federal naval blockade of the Atlantic coast. In two months of 1863, 21 Confederate vessels cleared Charleston Harbor and 15 entered. Into Charleston came needed war supplies; out went cotton in payment. To close the port- and also capture the city-it was necessary first to seize Fort Sumter, now repaired and armed with some 95 guns. after an earlier Army attempt had failed on James Island, the job fell to the U.S.Navy, and Rear Adm. Samuel F. Du Pont was ordered to take the fort.
On the afternoon of April 7, 1863, nine armored vessels steamed slowly into the harbor and headed for Fort Sumter. For 2 1/2 hours the ironclads dueled with Confederate batteries in the forts and around the harbor. The attack only scarred and battered Sumter's walls, but the far more intense and accurate Confederate fire disabled five Federal ships, one which, the Keokuk, sank the next morning.
When the ironclads failed, federal strategy changed. Du Pont was removed from command and replaced by Rear Adm. John A. Dahlgren, who planned to combine land and sea operations to seize nearby Morris Island and from there demolish Fort Sumter. At a position secured by U.S. forces on Morris Island, Union troops under Brig. Gen. Quincy A. Gilmore began to place rifled cannon powerful enough to breach Sumter's walls.
Meanwhile, Confederate laborers and slaves inside Fort Sumter worked day and night with bales of cotton and sand to buttress the walls facing the federal guns. The fort's garrison at this time consisted of five companies of the First South Carolina Artillery under Col. Alfred Rhett.
Federal troops fired a few experimental rounds at the for in late July and early August. The bombardment began in earnest on August 17, with almost 1,000 shells being fired the first day alone. Within a week, the fort's brick walls. were shattered and reduced to ruins, but the garrison refused to surrender and continued to repair and strengthen the defenses.
Confederate guns at Fort Moultrie and other points now took up the defense of Sumter. Another Federal assault on September 9 fell short; this time the attackers lost five boats and 124 men trying to take the fort from Maj. Stephen Elliott and fresh Confederate troops under his command. Except for ten-day period of heavy firing, the bombardment continued intermittently until the end of December. By then, Sumter's cannon were severely damaged and dismounted and its defenders could respond with only "harmless musketry."
In the summer of 1864, after Maj. Gen. John G. Foster replaced Gillmore as commander of land operations, the Federals made one last attempt to take Sumter. Foster, a member of Anderson's 1861 garrison, believed that "with proper arrangements" the fort could be taken "at any time." A sustained two month Union bombardment, however, failed to dislodge the 300-man Confederate garrison and Foster was ordered to send most of his remaining ammunition and several regiments of troops north to aid Grant's Campaign against Richmond.
Desultory fire against the fort continued through January 1865. For 22 months Fort Sumter had withstood Federal siege and bombardment, and it no longer resembled a fort at all. But defensively it was stronger than ever. Big Federal guns had hurled seven million pounds of metal at it, yet the Confederate losses during this period had been only 52 killed and 267 wounded.
Gen. William T. Sherman's troops advancing north from Savannah, however caused the Confederate troops to be withdrawn, and Fort Sumter was evacuated on February 17, 1865.
SCDogPapa
Jefferson Davis 1808-1889
President of the Confederate States of America
We feel that our cause is just and holy; we protest solemnly in the face of mankind that we desire peace at any sacrifice save that of honour and independence; we ask no conquest, no aggrandizement, no concession of any kind from the States with which we were lately confederated; all we ask is to be let alone; that those who never held power over us shall not now attempt our subjugation by arms. 'President Jefferson Davis - 29 April 1861'
Jefferson Davis was born on June 3, 1808, in Christian (now Todd) County, Kentucky, and educated at Transylvania University, Lexington, Kentucky.
Military History
U.S. Military Academy Graduated 1828. Afterwards was in the frountier service. Health forced him to resign from the army in 1835 Fought in the Mexican War at Monterrey and Buena Vista Wounded at Buena Vista.
Political History
US senator from Mississippi from 1835 to 1845. US Congressman from 1845 to 1846 US Congressman from 1857 to 1861 Withdrew from the Senate in 1861 when Mississippi seceded. On February 18, 1861, the provisional Congress of the Confederate States made him provisional president . He was elected to the office by popular vote the same year for a 6-year term and was inauguratedin Richmond, Virginia, the capital of the Confederacy, on February 22, 1862.
During the War
Davis failed to raise sufficient money to fight the American Civil War and could not obtain recognition and help for the Confederacy from foreign governments. He was in constant conflict with extreme exponents of the doctrine of states' rights, and his attempts to have high military officers appointed by the president were opposed by the governors of the states. The judges of state courts constantly interfered in military matters through judicial decisions.
Davis was nevertheless responsible for the raising of the formidable Confederate armies, the notable appointment of General Robert E. Lee as commander of the Army of Virginia, and the encouragement of industrial enterprise throughout the South. His zeal, energy, and faith in the cause of the South were a source of much of the tenacity with which the Confederacy fought the Civil War. Even in 1865 Davis still hoped the South would be able to achieve its independence, but at last he realized defeat was imminent and fled from Richmond.
On May 10, 1865, federal troops captured him at Irwinville, Georgia. From 1865 to 1867 he was imprisoned at Fortress Monroe, Virginia. Davis was indicted for treason in 1866 but the next year was released on a bond of $100,000 signed by the American newspaper publisher Horace Greeley and other influential Northerners. In 1868 the federal government dropped the case against him.
From 1870 to 1878 he engaged in a number of unsuccessful business enterprises; and from 1878 until his death in New Orleans, on December 6, 1889, he lived near Biloxi, Mississippi. His grave is in Richmond, Virginia. He wrote The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government (1881).