The Great Republic by the Master Historians Fort Sumter Bombarded byBancroft, Hubert H.
[The war between the North and the South had its actual beginning in 1855, in
the sanguinary struggle on the soil of Kansas between the settlers and the
invading Missourians. The next step of violence in this contest was the brutal
attack of Brooks on Sumner, on the floor of the Senate-chamber, on May 22, 1856.
It was continued by the warlike acts of John Brown in Kansas and Missouri, and
his assault upon Harper's Ferry.
These direct acts of violence were accompanied by a war of words and threats
whose significance was not then properly appreciated. The debates in Congress
were conducted with a bitterness of recrimination that has never been equalled
before or since, while from 1850 onward the threat of secession was openly made
whenever any pro-slavery measure met with strong opposition. In the Presidential
election of 1856 the strength of the Republican party was shown in a vote for
Fremont of 1,341,264 to 1,838,169 for Buchanan. Fill-more, the candidate of the
American party,--which deprecated any interference with the right of the actual
settlers of a Territory to frame their Constitution and laws,--received 874,534
votes.
On the approach of the period for the 1860 election the state of public feeling
had grown far more violent, and the hot-headed leaders of Southern politics were
so determined upon having all or nothing that they divided their party and
insured their defeat, rather than accept the moderate views of the Northern
section of the party. Stephen A. Douglas, the candidate of the Northern
Democrats, was opposed by John C. Breckenridge as a candidate of the
Southerners. The "Constitutional Union" (late "American") party nominated John
Bell, of Tennessee, while the Republicans offered as their candidate Abraham
Lincoln, of Illinois, whose record on the question at issue was embraced in a
sentence of a recent speech: "I believe this government cannot permanently
endure half slave and half free." The issue between freedom and slavery was for
the first time clearly defined in a political contest. Pro-slavery and anti-
slavery were pitted against each other in the most momentous election-contest
the country had ever known. Lincoln might have been elected in any case. As it
was, the division of their party by the Southerners insured his election,--a
result, indeed, rather desired than deprecated by the South, to judge from the
spirit of rejoicing with which the news of the Republican victory was received
in South Carolina.
Already in 1856 an intention not to submit to the decision of the people, if
adverse to the views of the slave-holders, had been manifested. A secret
convention of Southern governors was held at Raleigh, North Carolina, in
October, 1856, whose animus was afterwards indicated by Governor Wise, of
Virginia, in the statement that if Fremont had been elected an army of twenty
thousand men would have marched to Washington and seized the Capitol, in order
forcibly to prevent his inauguration. In October, 1860, a meeting of prominent
politicians was held in South Carolina, which resolved on secession in the event
of Lincoln's election. Similar meetings were held in several of the Gulf States.
This was no idle threat. The most joyful enthusiasm was manifested in
Charleston, South Carolina, when the news of Lincoln's election reached the
"Fire-Eaters" of that city, and they felt that the opportunity for what they had
long desired was at hand. The fact that the Democrats still retained a majority
in Congress was not enough for the ultra Southern leaders. The passions of the
people were at fever-heat. Secession had been already determined upon. It could
at that time be attempted with advantage, from the fact that the administration
was still Democratic, and there was little fear of active interference with
measures of disunion before March, 1861. Compromises were attempted, but no one
would listen to them. Before New-Year's day, 1861, South Carolina had passed an
ordinance of secession and set up as an independent power. Other States
followed,--Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. The
northern range of slave States as yet refused to follow this example, and did
not do so until after war had actually broken out.
These acts of secession were quickly followed by the seizure of the United
States forts and arsenals in the seceding States, to which action the
authorities at Washington manifested no opposition, and indeed, as has been
declared, took good care that they should be well supplied with munitions of
war. Major Robert Anderson, in charge of the forts in Charleston harbor,
promptly evacuated Fort Moultrie, as incapable of defence, and established
himself in Fort Sumter with his small garrison of one hundred and twenty-eight
men. The remaining forts and the arsenal were at once seized, and volunteers
came pouring into the city. Similar seizures were made in the other seceding
States, and even in North Carolina, which had not seceded. About thirty forts,
mounting over three thousand guns, and having cost the United States twenty
million dollars, were thus forcibly taken possession of. A convention was held
at Montgomery, Alabama, a Constitution adopted, and Jefferson Davis elected
President, with Alexander H. Stephens for Vice-President, of the Confederated
Southern States.
On the 11th of February, 1861, Abraham Lincoln left his home in Springfield,
Illinois, and began his journey to Washington. On reaching Harrisburg,
indications of a purpose violently to oppose his progress became apparent, and
his journey from this point was performed secretly. His inaugural address,
delivered on the 4th of Marc, was conciliatory in tone, and the envoys from the
Confederate government, afterwards sent to Washington, were received with a lack
of plain-speaking that gave them hopes of a non-interference policy. It was not
until April that any decisive action was taken by the new administration. Fort
Sumter, in Charleston harbor, was beleaguered by a Confederate force. Was it to
be given up without a struggle? This was just then the vital question, and the
decision of the administration was manifested by secret but rapid preparations
to relieve the fort. Early in April a well-appointed fleet sailed southward for
this purpose. As soon as the fact came clearly to the knowledge of the leaders
at Charleston, hostilities were determined upon, unless Anderson would at once
consent to evacuated the fort. On April 12 he offered to evacuate on the 15th if
not by that date aided by the government. In reply he was given one hour in
which to decide, at the end of which time fire would be opened on the fort. An
interesting description of the stirring events that succeeded we select from
Victor's "History of the Southern Rebellion."]
Punctually at the hour indicated--twenty minutes past four A.M.--the roar of a
mortar from Sullivan's Island announced the war begun. A second bomb from the
same battery followed; then Fort Moultrie answered with the thunder of a
columbiad; Cumming's Point next, and the Floating Battery, dropped in their
resonant notes; then a pause, but only for a moment. A roar of fifty guns burst
in concert, a chorus to the solemn prelude which must have startled the spirits
of the patriotic dead in their slumbers.
Sumter lay off in the waters, the centre of that appalling circle of fire. The
early morning shadows had lifted from its ramparts to discover the stars and
stripes floating from the garrison staff; but it was as silent amid that storm
as if no living soul panted and fretted within its walls. It was the silence of
duty,--of men resolved on death, if their country called for the sacrifice. For
months the little garrison had been pent up in the fortress, over-worked and
underfed, but not a murmur escaped the men, and the hour of assault found all
prepared for their leader's orders,--to defend the fort to the last.
The sentinels were removed from the parapet, the posterns closed, and the order
given for the men to keep close within the casements until the call of the drum.
Breakfast was quietly served at six o'clock, the shot and shell of the enemy
thundering against the walls and pouring within the enclosure with remarkable
precision. After breakfast, disposition was calmly made for the day's work. The
casements were supplied from the magazines; the guns, without tangents or
scales, and even destitute of bearing-screws, were to be ranged by the eyes and
fired "by guess;" the little force was told off in relays, composed of three
reliefs, equally dividing the officers and men. Captain Doubleday took the first
detachment, and fired the first gun at seven o'clock. The captain directed his
guns at Moultrie, at the Cumming's Point iron battery, the floating iron-clad
battery anchored off the end of Sullivan's Island, and the enfilading battery on
Sullivan's Island,--all of which were then pouring in a scathing storm of solid
shot. To the mortar-batteries on James Island and Mount Pleasant, and to Fort
Johnson, but little attention was paid,--only an occasional columbiad answering
their terrific messengers to prove its defiance. The parapet-guns were not
served after a few rounds, as their exposed condition rendered it impossible to
work them without a sacrifice of men,--a sacrifice Anderson would not needlessly
allow. Throughout all that fearful fray the commander seemed never to lose sight
of the men; and that not a man was lost during the bombardment reflects quite as
much honor upon him as the defence did honor to his devotion to duty.
[The eagerness of the men within the fort was so great that the reliefs refused
to await their turns, while a body of Irish laborers, who at first declined to
handle the heavy guns, soon were among the most enthusiastic of the defenders.]
Their devotion, indeed, became reckless. An officer stated that, having ordered
the barbette guns to be silenced, owing to the murderous fire made upon them by
the rifled ordnance of the enfilading battery, he was surprised to hear a report
from one of the exposed forty-two-pounders. Proceeding to the parapet, he found
a party of the workmen serving the gun. "I saw one of them," he stated,
"stooping over, with his hands on his knees, convulsed with joy, while the tears
rolled down his powder-begrimed cheeks. `What are you doing there with that
gun?' I asked. `Hit it right in the centre,' was the reply, the man meaning that
his shot had taken effect in the centre of the floating battery."
Another officer present thus recorded the nature and effect of that literal rain
of iron which all the day long (Friday) poured in upon the still defiant walls:
"Shells burst with the greatest rapidity in every portion of the work, hurling
the loose brick and stone in all directions, breaking the windows, and setting
fire to whatever wood-work they burst against. The solid-shot firing of the
enemy's batteries, and particularly of Fort Moultrie, was directed at the
barbette guns of Fort Sumter, disabling one ten-inch columbiad (they had but
two), one eight-inch columbiad, one forty-two-pounder, and two eight-inch
seacoast howitzers, and also tearing a large portion of the parapet away. The
firing from the batteries on Cumming's Point was scattered over the whole of the
gorge, or rear, of the fort. It looked like a sieve. The explosion of shells,
and the quantity of deadly missiles that were hurled in every direction and at
every instant of time, made it almost certain death to go out of the lower tier
of casements, and also made the working of the barbette or upper uncovered guns,
which contained all our heaviest metals, and by which alone we could throw
shells, quite impossible. During the first day there was hardly an instant of
time that there was a cessation of the whizzing of balls, which were sometimes
coming half a dozen at once. There was not a portion of the work which was not
seen in reverse (that is, exposed by the rear) from mortars."..
At noon, Friday, the supply of cartridges in the fort was exhausted, when the
blankets of the barracks and the shirts of the men were sewed into the required
bags and served out. No instrument was in the fort for weighing the powder, thus
forbidding all precision in the charge, and, as a consequence, causing much
variation in planting the shot. When we add that the guns wanted both tangents,
breech or telescopic sights, that wedges served instead of bearing-screws, we
can only express astonishment at the accuracy attained. Not a structure of the
enemy escaped the solid balls of the columbiads and paixhans. The village of
Moultrieville--a gathering of summer-houses belonging to citizens of Charleston-
-was completely riddled.
The fleet appeared off the harbor at noon, Friday. Signals passed between
Anderson and the vessels, but no effort was made to run the gauntlet. Along
Morris and Sullivan's Islands were anchored small batteries, commanding the
harbor-entrance, expressly designed to prevent the passage of vessels over the
bar and up the channel. To have passed these would only have brought the vessel
in range of the irresistible guns of Cumming's Point and of Moultrie. No wooden
frame could have withstood their fearful hail. The only feasible plan was, under
cover of the night, to run in with small boats, or to force a landing on Morris
Island and carry the batteries by assault. Either plan would have proven
successful, if conducted with spirit, though it would have entailed much loss of
life. Why it was not undertaken is only explainable on the inference that Mr.
Lincoln did not want to retain Sumter. The possession of the fort was a matter
of no military importance; a blockade would render all the defences of the
harbor useless. The assault on the fort would serve to initiate the war for the
Union, and thus instate the President's policy for the suppression of the
rebellion. The refusal to withdraw the garrison from Charleston harbor
unquestionably was the subtle key to unlock the national sympathies and to place
in Mr. Lincoln's hands the entire power of the loyal States. He counted well
upon the madness of the Confederates, and simply opened the way for them to
assail the government by assaulting its garrison. This was the part for Fort
Sumter to play; and, having played it successfully, it was not necessary to
retain the position. The evacuation of the fortress, and the return to the North
of its garrison, to excite public sympathy, would be worth more to the cause of
the Union than the reinforcement and retention of the stronghold.
[During Friday the officers' barracks within the fort were set on fire several
times, but were extinguished. Guns were fired at intervals through the night, to
prevent repairs.]
Saturday morning, at the earliest light, the cannonading was resumed with
redoubled fury. By eight o'clock the red-hot balls from the furnace in Moultrie
came to prove that the revolutionists would use every means to dislodge the
obstinate Anderson. Soon the barracks and quarters were in flames, past all
control. The men were then withdrawn from the guns, to avert the now impending
danger to the magazine. The powder must be emptied into the sea. Ninety barrels
were rolled over the area exposed to the flames, and pitched into the water. By
this time the heat from the burning buildings became intense, fairly stifling
the men with its dense fumes. The doors of the vault were, therefore, sealed,
while the men crept into the casemates to avoid suffocation by cowering close to
the floor, covering their faces with wet cloths. An occasional gun only could be
fired, as a signal to the enemy and the fleet outside that the fort had not
surrendered. The colors still floated from the staff. When the winds bore the
smoke and flames aside, its folds revealed to the enemy the glorious stars and
stripes, waving there amid the ruin and treble terror, unscathed. Its halliards
had been shot away, but, becoming entangled, the flag was fixed. Only the
destruction of the staff could drag it down.
This appalling conflagration seemed to inflame the zeal of the assailants. The
entire circle of attack blazoned with fire, and the air was cut into hissing
arches of smoke and balls. The rebel general in command had stated that two
hours, probably, would suffice to reduce the fortress, but twenty-eight hours
had not accomplished the work; and now, as the besiegers beheld another and more
invincible power coming to their aid, they acknowledged the service rendered, by
frenzied shouts and redoubled service at their guns. It must have been a moment
to inspire the enthusiasm of seven thousand sons of the South, when flames and
suffocation came to assist in reducing eighty half-starved and exhausted men.
About noon of Saturday the upper service magazine exploded, tearing away the
tower and upper portions of the fort, and doing more havoc than a week's
bombardment could have effected. One who was present wrote, "The crash of the
beams, the roar of the flames, the rapid explosion of the shells, and the shower
of fragments of the fort, with the blackness of the smoke, made the scene
indescribably terrific and grand. This continued for several hours. Meanwhile,
the main gates were burned down, the chassis of the barbette guns were burned
away on the gorge, and the upper portions of the towers had been demolished by
shells.
"There was not a portion of the fort where a breath of air could be got for
hours, except through a wet cloth. The fire spread to the men's quarters, on the
right hand and on the left, and endangered the powder which had been taken out
of the magazines. The men went through the fire and covered the barrels with wet
cloths, but the danger of the fort's blowing up became so imminent that they
were obliged to heave the barrels out of the embrasures. While the powder was
being thrown overboard, all the guns of Moultrie, of the iron floating battery,
of the enfilade battery, and the Dahlgren battery, worked with increased vigor.
"All but four barrels were thus disposed of, and those remaining were wrapped in
many thicknesses of wet woollen blankets. But three cartridges were left, and
these were in the guns. About this time the flag-staff of Fort Sumter was shot
down, some fifty feet from the truck, this being the ninth time that it had been
struck by a shot. The men cried out, `The flag is down; it has been shot away!'
In an instant, Lieutenant Hall rushed forward and brought the flag away. But the
halliards were so inextricably tangled that it could not be righted: it was,
therefore, nailed to the staff, and planted upon the ramparts, while batteries
in every direction were playing upon them."
[Shortly after this incident, Louis T. Wigfall, late United States Senator from
Texas, came out to the fort with a white flag. He announced that he had been
sent by General Beauregard to demand on what terms Anderson would surrender. The
latter replied that he would evacuate on the terms offered in his note to
Beauregard, and on no others. Another boat soon after appeared, with members of
Beauregard's staff, and Anderson, to his mortification, was informed that
Wigfall had come out utterly without authority. Beauregard, however, accepted
the terms which Anderson had proposed to Wigfall, and the opening battle of the
war ended, a contest in which not a man had been lost on either side. The
poorly-prepared condition for service of Sumter's guns had saved the assailants
from all peril.]
During the bombardment a vast concourse of people gathered in Charleston, and
lined the wharves and promenade, to witness the sublime contest. The surrounding
country poured in its eager, excited masses to add to the throng. Men, women,
and children stood there, hour after hour, with blanched faces and praying
hearts; for few of that crowd but had some loved one in the works under fire.
Messengers came hourly from the several positions, to assure the people of the
safety of the men. The second day's conflict found the city densely filled with
people, crowding in by railway and private conveyances from the more distant
counties, until Charleston literally swarmed with humanity, which, in
dispersing, after the evacuation, played the important part of agents to "fire
the Southern heart" for the storm which their madness had evoked.
The evacuation took place Sunday morning [April 14, 1861], commencing at half-
past nine. The steamer Isabel was detailed to receive the garrison, and to bear
it to any point in the North which Anderson might indicate. The baggage was
first transferred to the transport; then the troops marched out, bearing their
arms; while a squad, specially detailed, fired fifty guns as a salute to their
flag. At the last discharge, a premature explosion killed one man, David Hough,
and wounded three,--the only loss and injury which the men suffered in the
eventful drama. The troops then lowered their flag and marched out with their
colors flying, while the band played "Yankee Doodle" and "Hail to the Chief."
From the Isabel the garrison was conveyed to the transport Baltic, still
anchored outside the bar. The Baltic sailed for New York Tuesday evening, April
16th.. Thus ended the drama of Sumter,--a drama which served to prelude the
grander tragedy of the War for the Union.
