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Authors: Steven Woodworth
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Chesnut and his cohorts piled back into their boat and took this message back to Beauregard, who in turn telegraphed it to Montgomery.
Davis had his secretary of war reply that if Anderson would specify a time when he would evacuate the fort, Beauregard could hold off on the attack. Back into the boat went Chesnut and the other two staff officers for the long pull across the harbor. By the time they reached the fort, it was well after midnight on the morning of April 12. When Anderson met with them and heard their demand for a date to evacuate the fort, he gave April 15, if resupply did not reach him first. Everyone knew that the Union relief expedition was scheduled to arrive before then, so Chesnut took the responsibility, though very much in keeping with the wishes of Beauregard and Davis, of refusing Anderson’s terms and informing him that Confederate guns would open fire on the fort in one hour.
Once again plying their boat across the harbor, the three Confederate officers proceeded to the nearest Confederate battery, located on James Island, and gave the order to fire. Among the Confederate soldiers there was Virginia Fire-Eater Edmund Ruffin, still sporting his long, white hair. Having had himself temporarily inducted into the Virginia Military Institute so that he could have the pleasure of watching John Brown hang seventeen months before, Ruffin had now temporarily joined a South Carolina unit and was thus on hand for the first shot of the war. Indeed, according to some stories he actually fired the first shot, though this is generally discounted. It was 4:30 a.m., on Friday, April 12, when the guns on James Island roared into action, and the rest of the Confederate guns around the harbor quickly joined them in opening fire.
Low on ammunition, Anderson held his fire for the first several hours, then had his men reply sparingly. Outside the harbor, Fox and his relief expedition stood by helplessly, unable to force their way to the fort. By the afternoon of April 13, with ammunition almost gone and flames out of control inside the fort, threatening its powder magazine, Anderson surrendered. He and his seventy-six men had done all that could have been expected of them and by putting up a stout fight had demonstrated that the United States was not willingly acquiescing in the surrender of its fort. Amazingly, the thirty-four-hour-long bombardment had killed no one. Beauregard, always an admirer of the chivalrous niceties of war as it had been practiced in an earlier age, allowed Anderson to fire a fifty-gun salute to his flag in a formal surrender ceremony the following day before leaving the fort to board Fox’s ship and head north. Ironically, a gunner firing the salute accidentally ignited a pile of cartridges, and two U.S. soldiers died in the blast.
LINCOLN CALLS FOR TROOPS AND THE UPPER SOUTH AND BORDER STATES REACT
News of Fort Sumter shocked the nation, and both North and South reacted strongly. As Lincoln would later explain the situation, “Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came.” 2
On April 15, the day following the surrender ceremony in Charleston, Lincoln, following the Constitution as well as Washington’s example in the Whiskey Rebellion, issued a proclamation: “Whereas the laws of the United States have been and are opposed in several States by combinations too powerful to be suppressed in the ordinary way,” the president requested the states to provide seventy-five thousand militia for federal service. Proslavery governors in Upper South states like Virginia, North Carolina, and Kentucky indignantly refused, but the response across the North was more than enthusiastic. The flag had been fired on, and the North rose up in a surprisingly unified reaction. Stephen Douglas pledged his support to Lincoln in suppressing treason. Patriotic rallies took place in
Davis had his secretary of war reply that if Anderson would specify a time when he would evacuate the fort, Beauregard could hold off on the attack. Back into the boat went Chesnut and the other two staff officers for the long pull across the harbor. By the time they reached the fort, it was well after midnight on the morning of April 12. When Anderson met with them and heard their demand for a date to evacuate the fort, he gave April 15, if resupply did not reach him first. Everyone knew that the Union relief expedition was scheduled to arrive before then, so Chesnut took the responsibility, though very much in keeping with the wishes of Beauregard and Davis, of refusing Anderson’s terms and informing him that Confederate guns would open fire on the fort in one hour.
Once again plying their boat across the harbor, the three Confederate officers proceeded to the nearest Confederate battery, located on James Island, and gave the order to fire. Among the Confederate soldiers there was Virginia Fire-Eater Edmund Ruffin, still sporting his long, white hair. Having had himself temporarily inducted into the Virginia Military Institute so that he could have the pleasure of watching John Brown hang seventeen months before, Ruffin had now temporarily joined a South Carolina unit and was thus on hand for the first shot of the war. Indeed, according to some stories he actually fired the first shot, though this is generally discounted. It was 4:30 a.m., on Friday, April 12, when the guns on James Island roared into action, and the rest of the Confederate guns around the harbor quickly joined them in opening fire.
Low on ammunition, Anderson held his fire for the first several hours, then had his men reply sparingly. Outside the harbor, Fox and his relief expedition stood by helplessly, unable to force their way to the fort. By the afternoon of April 13, with ammunition almost gone and flames out of control inside the fort, threatening its powder magazine, Anderson surrendered. He and his seventy-six men had done all that could have been expected of them and by putting up a stout fight had demonstrated that the United States was not willingly acquiescing in the surrender of its fort. Amazingly, the thirty-four-hour-long bombardment had killed no one. Beauregard, always an admirer of the chivalrous niceties of war as it had been practiced in an earlier age, allowed Anderson to fire a fifty-gun salute to his flag in a formal surrender ceremony the following day before leaving the fort to board Fox’s ship and head north. Ironically, a gunner firing the salute accidentally ignited a pile of cartridges, and two U.S. soldiers died in the blast.
LINCOLN CALLS FOR TROOPS AND THE UPPER SOUTH AND BORDER STATES REACT
News of Fort Sumter shocked the nation, and both North and South reacted strongly. As Lincoln would later explain the situation, “Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came.” 2
On April 15, the day following the surrender ceremony in Charleston, Lincoln, following the Constitution as well as Washington’s example in the Whiskey Rebellion, issued a proclamation: “Whereas the laws of the United States have been and are opposed in several States by combinations too powerful to be suppressed in the ordinary way,” the president requested the states to provide seventy-five thousand militia for federal service. Proslavery governors in Upper South states like Virginia, North Carolina, and Kentucky indignantly refused, but the response across the North was more than enthusiastic. The flag had been fired on, and the North rose up in a surprisingly unified reaction. Stephen Douglas pledged his support to Lincoln in suppressing treason. Patriotic rallies took place in
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