Fort Sumter is a Third System masonry coastal fortification located in Charleston Charleston is a city in Charleston County, South Carolina in the U.S. state of South Carolina. It is the largest city and the county seat of Charleston County. The City is also the oldest city in South Carolina. The city's original name was Charles Towne in 1670, and it moved to its present location from a location on the west bank of the Ashley harbor, South Carolina The colony was originally named in honor of King Charles I, as Carolus is Latin for Charles. The fort is best known as the site upon which the shots initiating the American Civil War Union blockade – Eastern – Western – Lower Seaboard – Trans-Mississippi – Pacific Coast were fired, at the Battle of Fort Sumter The Battle of Fort Sumter was the bombardment and surrender of Fort Sumter, near Charleston, South Carolina, that started the American Civil War. Following declarations of secession by seven Southern states, South Carolina demanded that the U.S. army abandon Fort Sumter, which was refused. When the ultimatum deadline passed, an artillery barrage.
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Construction
Named after General Thomas Sumter, Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War or American War of Independence began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen former British colonies in North America, and concluded in a global war between several European great powers hero, Fort Sumter was built following the War of 1812 The War of 1812 was a military conflict fought between the forces of the United States of America and those of the British Empire. It was fought between 1812 and 1815, and started over a multitude of reasons, including trade restrictions, impressment of United States Navy personnel into the Royal Navy, alleged British support of American Indian, as one of a series of fortifications on the southern U.S. coast. Construction began in 1827, and the structure was still unfinished in 1860, when the conflict began. Seventy thousand tons of granite were imported from New England In one of the earliest European settlements in North America, Pilgrims from England first settled in New England in 1620, to form Plymouth Colony. Ten years later, the Puritans settled north of Plymouth Colony in Boston, thus forming Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630. In the late 18th century, the New England colonies would be among the first North to build up a sand bar A shoal, sandbar , or gravelbar is a somewhat linear landform within or extending into a body of water, typically composed of sand, silt or small pebbles. A spit or sandspit is a type of shoal. Shoals are characteristically long and narrow (linear) and develop where a stream or ocean current promotes deposition of granular material, resulting in in the entrance to Charleston harbor, which the site dominates. The fort was a five-sided brick structure, 170 to 190 feet (58 m) long, with walls five feet thick, standing 50 feet (15 m) over the low tide mark. It was designed to house 650 men and 135 guns in three tiers of gun emplacements, although it was never filled near its full capacity.
Civil War
Letter from William H. Seward William Henry Seward, Sr. was the 12th Governor of New York, United States Senator and the United States Secretary of State under Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson. An outspoken opponent of the spread of slavery in the years leading up to the American Civil War, he was a dominant figure in the Republican Party in its formative years, and was advising President Lincoln Abraham Lincoln served as the 16th President of the United States from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led the United States through its greatest internal crisis, the American Civil War, preserving the Union and ending slavery. Before his election in 1860 as the first Republican president, Lincoln, reared in a on the obstacles in reprovisioning Fort Sumter, March 1861On December 26, 1860, six days after South Carolina declared its secession, U.S. Army The United States Army is the branch of the United States armed forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven uniformed services. The modern Army has its roots in the Continental Army which was formed on 14 June 1775, before the establishment of the Major Robert Anderson abandoned the indefensible Fort Moultrie and secretly relocated companies E and H (127 men, 13 of them musicians) of the 1st U.S. Artillery to Fort Sumter without orders from Washington, on his own initiative.[2][3][4][5][6] He thought that providing a stronger defense would delay an attack by South Carolina militia. The Fort was not yet complete at the time and fewer than half of the cannons A cannon is any piece of artillery that uses gunpowder or other usually explosive-based propellants to launch a projectile. Cannon vary in caliber, range, mobility, rate of fire, angle of fire, and firepower; different forms of cannon combine and balance these attributes in varying degrees, depending on their intended use on the battlefield. The that should have been available were not, due to military downsizing by President James Buchanan James Buchanan, Jr. was the 15th President of the United States from 1857–1861 and the last to be born in the 18th century. To date he is the only president from the state of Pennsylvania and the only bachelor. Over the next few months, repeated calls for the United States evacuation of Fort Sumter[7] from the government of South Carolina and later Confederate The Confederate States of America was the government set up from 1861 to 1865 by eleven southern slave states of the United States of America that had declared their secession from the U.S. The CSA's de facto control over its claimed territory varied during the course of the American Civil War, depending on the success of its military in battle Brigadier General Brigadier General is a senior rank in the Armed Forces. It is the lowest ranking General Officer in some countries, usually sitting between the ranks of Colonel and Major General. A Brigadier General is typically in command of a Brigade consisting of around 3,000 troops P.G.T. Beauregard Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard was a Louisiana-born American military officer, politician, inventor, writer, civil servant, and the first prominent general of the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War were ignored. United States attempts to resupply and reinforce the garrison were repulsed on January 9, 1861 when the first shots of the war, fired by cadets from The Citadel prevented the steamer Star of the West, a ship hired by the Union to transport troops and supplies to Fort Sumter, from completing the task. After realizing that Anderson's command would run out of food by April 15, 1861, President Lincoln Abraham Lincoln served as the 16th President of the United States from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led the United States through its greatest internal crisis, the American Civil War, preserving the Union and ending slavery. Before his election in 1860 as the first Republican president, Lincoln, reared in a ordered a fleet of ships, under the command of Gustavus V. Fox, to attempt entry into Charleston Harbor and support Fort Sumter. The ships assigned were the steam sloop-of-war USS Pawnee, steam sloop-of-war USS Powhatan, transporting motorized launches and about 300 sailors (secretly removed from the Charleston fleet to join in the forced reinforcement of Fort Pickens, Pensacola, Fla.), armed screw steamer USS Pocahontas, Revenue Cutter USS Harriet Lane, steamer Baltic transporting about 200 troops, composed of companies C and D of the 2nd U.S. Artillery, and three hired tug boats with added protection against small arms fire to be used to tow troop and supply barges directly to Fort Sumter.[8][9] By April 6, 1861 the first ships began to set sail for their rendezvous off the Charleston Bar. The first to arrive was the Harriet Lane, before midnight of April 11, 1861.[10]
1861, inside the fort flying the Confederate FlagFirst Battle of Fort Sumter
Main article: Battle of Fort Sumter The Battle of Fort Sumter was the bombardment and surrender of Fort Sumter, near Charleston, South Carolina, that started the American Civil War. Following declarations of secession by seven Southern states, South Carolina demanded that the U.S. army abandon Fort Sumter, which was refused. When the ultimatum deadline passed, an artillery barrageOn April 11, 1861, Beauregard sent three aides, Colonel James Chesnut, Jr., Captain Stephen D. Lee, and Lieutenant A. R. Chisolm to demand the surrender of the fort. Anderson declined, and the aides returned to report to Beauregard. After Beauregard had consulted the Secretary of War, Leroy Walker, he sent the aides back to the fort and authorized Chesnut to decide whether the fort should be taken by force. The aides waited for hours while Anderson considered his alternatives and played for time. At about 3 a.m., when Anderson finally announced his conditions, Colonel Chesnut, after conferring with the other aides, decided that they were "manifestly futile and not within the scope of the instructions verbally given to us". The aides then left the fort and proceeded to the nearby Fort Johnson. There Chesnut ordered the fort to open fire on Fort Sumter.[11]
On April 12, 1861, at 4:30 a.m., Confederate batteries opened fire, firing for 34 straight hours, on the fort. Edmund Ruffin, noted Virginian agronomist and secessionist, claimed that he fired the first shot on Fort Sumter. His story has been widely believed, but Lieutenant Henry S. Farley, commanding a battery of two mortars on James Island fired the first shot at 4:30 A.M. (Detzer 2001, pp. 269–71). The garrison returned fire, but it was ineffective, in part because Major Anderson did not use the guns mounted on the highest tier, the barbette tier, where the gun detachments would be more exposed to Confederate fire. On April 13, the fort was surrendered and evacuated. During the attack, the Union colors fell. Lt.Norman J. Hall risked life and limb to put them back up, burning off his eyebrows permanently. No Union soldiers died in the actual battle though a Confederate soldier bled to death having been wounded by a misfiring cannon. One Union soldier died and another was mortally wounded during the 47th shot of a 100 shot salute, allowed by the Confederacy. Afterwards the salute was shortened to 50 shots. Accounts, such as in the famous diary of Mary Chesnut, describe Charleston residents along what is now known as The Battery, sitting on balconies and drinking salutes to the start of the hostilities. The Fort Sumter Flag became a popular patriotic symbol after Maj. Anderson returned North with it. The flag is still displayed in the fort's museum.
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Allen
Mon, 12 Apr 2010 12:12:41 GM
by Publius Today, in 1861, Confederate forces fired on . Fort Sumter. , a federal fort in Charleston Harbor. The attack kicked off the.
