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The context behind Washington\u2019s prevenient quote became acutely relevant during the War of 1812, when inadequate national security measures, specifically vulnerable coastal defenses, jeopardized the integrity of American sovereignty. On August 24, 1814, invading British troops infamously exploited these pervasive weaknesses at the Battle of Bladensburg, which ultimately resulted in the Burning of Washington, D.C. While the Treaty of Ghent (effective February 17, 1815) restored the <\/span>status quo antebellum<\/span><\/em>\u00a0and peaceful Anglo-American relations, government officials acknowledged the need for a revamped national military policy. In a letter dated December 15, 1815, President James Madison recommended for \u201ca liberal provision for the immediate extension and gradual completion of the works of defense\u2026on our maritime frontier.\u201d Congress expeditiously appropriated $800,000 for Madison\u2019s ambitious proposal and created a Board of Engineers to survey and design this seacoast fortification network, known contemporarily as the Third System of Coastal Defense. \u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
By 1821, the Board identified fifty strategic fortification sites, one of which being Charleston Harbor; however, plans for Fort Sumter\u2014named after \u201cGamecock\u201d General Thomas Sumter, who commanded South Carolina militia forces during the Revolutionary War\u2014were not adopted until December 1828. Positioned on a sandbar, the new fortress was contrived to complement Fort Moultrie (located on Sullivan\u2019s Island) and provide concentrated crossfire against enemy fleets attempting to enter Charleston Harbor.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
During the first fifteen years of construction, over 100,000 tons of granite were transported from northern quarries and deposited around the tidal shoal, creating a 2.5-acre artificial island to support Fort Sumter\u2019s foundation. This preliminary fabrication stage was repeatedly delayed due to fluctuating periods of high tide and tropical illness outbreaks among the labor force.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
Work on Fort Sumter suddenly ceased in November 1834 when the South Carolina State Legislature launched an inquiry investigating \u201cwhether the creation of an Island on a shoal in the Channel may not injuriously affect the navigation and commerce of the Harbor.\u201d Apparently, the federal government had commenced construction operations without explicit approval or regard for state affairs. Concomitantly, Charleston resident William Laval\u2014who possessed a vague grant for \u201c870 acres of harbor land\u201d\u2014claimed that Fort Sumter was being built on his property; however, this contestation was nullified by the state\u2019s attorney general in 1837. After years of legal proceedings, the federal government ultimately received title to 125 acres of Charleston Harbor. Construction resumed in January 1841.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
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On August 21, 1858, the USS <\/span>Dolphin <\/span><\/em>intercepted the American trading vessel <\/span>Echo<\/span><\/em> off the coast of Cuba. A boarding party discovered a \u201cmost revolting\u201d sight\u2014more than three hundred Africans crowded below deck, wallowing in putrefaction and suffocative living conditions. The <\/span>Echo<\/span><\/em>\u00a0had departed West Central Africa with approximately 450 captives six weeks prior, but 137 tragically perished\u2014their bodies unceremoniously dumped overboard during the Trans-Atlantic journey. Many surviving passengers were emaciated by malnourishment, diseased with dysentery, and \u201creduced to the merest skeletons.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
The <\/span>Echo <\/span><\/em>and its human cargo were brought to Charleston Harbor on August 27. Fort Sumter and Castle Pinckney provided temporary asylum for the African captives. Sensationalized descriptions of the contrabands prompted local entrepreneurs to organize harbor cruises and view the grim spectacle up close. Witnesses were horrified by the obvious \u201cproof of human depravity.\u201d Several Charlestonians, including some slaves, provided humanitarian aid in the form of foodstuffs, blankets, and medical supplies. Despite these efforts, thirty-five unfortunate souls died in quarantine. In September 1858, President James Buchanan, citing constitutional grounds, consigned the USS <\/span>Niagara<\/span><\/em>\u00a0to transport the remaining <\/span>Echo<\/span><\/em> captives to Liberia. Regrettably, another seventy-one individuals died aboard the steamship during its month-long voyage. Only 196 survived the entire ordeal.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
The <\/span>Echo<\/span><\/em>\u2019s crew were arrested for participating in the international slave trade and charged with piracy\u2014a crime punishable by death, as provisioned by an 1820 law. The criminal trial commenced in April 1859 at a Charleston federal court. Leonidas Spratt, a pro-slavery pundit and newspaper editor, represented the sixteen defendants while U.S. District Attorney James Conner headed the prosecution. Despite the crew\u2019s obvious guilt, Spratt successfully challenged the constitutionality of the 1820 slave trading law with spirited paternalistic arguments. The all-white Southern jury issued \u201cnot guilty\u201d verdicts after ninety minutes of deliberation. The <\/span>Echo<\/span><\/em>\u2019s captain, Edward Townsend, was tried separately at a U.S. Circuit Court in Key West, Florida, and likewise acquitted of wrongdoing.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
THE HARBINGER OF CIVIL WAR<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
\u201c[I]f Sumter was properly garrisoned and armed, it would be a perfect Gibraltar to anything but <\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
constant shelling, night and day, from the four points of the compass\u2026[W]e must, for the present, turn <\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
our attention to preventing it from being re-enforced.\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
\u2013 Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
In April 1860, the Democratic Party hosted its national convention at Charleston\u2019s Institute Hall. The primary objective was to appoint a presidential nominee. Illinois Senator Stephen A. Douglas was the favored candidate, but his endorsement for popular sovereignty policies placed him at odds with radical southern constituents, who supported slavery\u2019s unrestricted expansion into western territories. The delegations of eight states walked out in protest, driving a schism within the Democratic Party. The two bitter factions reconvened in Baltimore, Maryland, six weeks later. While northern delegates championed Douglas\u2019s candidacy, Southern Democrats chose Kentuckian John C. Breckinridge\u2014the contemporary Vice President and pro-secessionist sympathizer. This sectionalism diluted the Democratic Party’s strength during the 1860 Presidential Election, providing Republican nominee Abraham Lincoln an easy path to victory.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
Like most Republicans, Lincoln found the South\u2019s \u201cpeculiar institution\u201d morally abhorrent; however, he acknowledged that utilizing executive power to enact abolitionist legislation could irreparably disband the Union. Therefore, Lincoln espoused a non-expansionist platform, restricting chattel slavery to extant slave states where \u201cit would surely die a slow death.\u201d But radical Southern nationalists (called fire-eaters) were not interested in compromise. On December 20, 1860, in response to Lincoln\u2019s election, 169 members of the South Carolina Social Convention passed and signed an Ordinance of Secession, thereby establishing an independent slaveholding republic.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
During this secessionist turmoil, Major Robert Anderson\u2014a 55-year-old Kentucky native and West Point graduate\u2014commanded 85 men from the First U.S. Artillery Regiment and all American fortifications around Charleston Harbor: the Federal Arsenal, Castle Pinckney, Fort Johnson, Fort Sumter, and headquarters at Fort Moultrie (which was in significant disrepair). Confronted with growing threats of violence and insufficient manpower, Anderson found his position at Fort Moultrie untenable. On December 26, 1860, under cover of darkness, Federal troops hastily crossed Charleston Harbor and regarrisoned inside vacant Fort Sumter, only ninety-percent complete at the time. While designed to mount 135 cannons and provide living accommodations for 650 occupants, only fifteen of Fort Sumter\u2019s guns were installed. Sixty-six additional artillery pieces lay unlimbered along with 5,600 rounds of ammunition strewn across the fort\u2019s interior. The soldiers\u2019 barracks were largely unfinished while numerous \u201ctemporary wooden structures\u201d occupied the parade grounds.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
While Unionists hailed Fort Sumter\u2019s occupation as a symbol of steadfast American authority, fire-eaters reviled the move as a hostile act that defied South Carolina\u2019s peaceable efforts to secede. After learning of Anderson\u2019s attempted subterfuge, South Carolina Governor Francis Pickens mobilized the state militia. Thousands of men obeyed the call to arms, gradually amassing along Charleston\u2019s coastline and seizing abandoned field defenses.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
Amidst escalating tensions, outgoing President James Buchanan dispatched an unarmed steamer, <\/span>Star of the West<\/span><\/em>\u2014loaded with provisions and two hundred reinforcements\u2014to relieve Anderson\u2019s isolated garrison. On the morning of January 9, 1861, as the <\/span>Star<\/span><\/em>\u00a0approached Fort Sumter, Confederate defenders (namely Citadel Military College students stationed on Morris Island) fired upon the supply vessel, forcing its withdrawal. This deliberate attack only reaffirmed the inevitability of \u201cbloody conflict.\u201d By February 4, the states of Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana had issued their own articles of secession, effectively creating \u201ca great Slaveholding Confederacy, stretching its arm over a territory larger than any power in Europe possesses.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
Major Anderson\u2019s petulant refusal to concede Fort Sumter prompted Governor Pickens to send state attorney general Isaac W. Haynes to Washington D.C. and diplomatically request the garrison\u2019s recall. When solicitation failed, Haynes attempted to negotiate a price for Fort Sumter\u2019s acquisition. President Buchanan declined to entertain such concessions.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
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In early March 1861, the Confederate government assumed control of military operations around Fort Sumter. Newly commissioned Brigadier General P.G.T. Beauregard\u2014a graduate and former superintendent of West Point\u2014was appointed to command all Southern troops \u201c[within the vicinity of] Charleston Harbor\u201d two days later. Ironically, Beauregard\u2019s favorite instructor at West Point had been artillerist Robert Anderson, whose garrison occupied the contested fortress.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
As March bled into April, Anderson\u2019s men began running low on rations. After much deliberation, President Lincoln dispatched several merchant vessels\u2014accompanied by an armed naval flotilla under Captain Gustavus Vasa Fox\u2014to resupply Fort Sumter. On April 4, Secretary of War Simon Cameron informed Anderson of the pending relief effort. A courtesy notification was also conveyed to Governor Pickens and General Beauregard four days later. On April 10, Confederate Secretary of War Leroy P. Walker directed Beauregard to \u201cat once demand [Fort Sumter\u2019s] evacuation, and if this is refused, proceed in such manner as you may determine to reduce it.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
During the early midnight hours of April 12, three of Beauregard\u2019s aides\u2014James Chesnut Jr., A.R. Chisolm, and Stephen D. Lee\u2014arrived at Fort Sumter and presented Major Anderson with the following terms of surrender:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
\u201cSIR: The Government of the Confederate States has hitherto forborne from any hostile <\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
demonstration against Fort Sumter in the hope that the Government of the United States, with a view<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
to the amicable adjustment of all questions between the two governments, and to avert the calamities <\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
of war, would voluntarily evacuate it.\u2026I am ordered by the Government of the Confederate States to <\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
demand the evacuation of Fort Sumter.\u2026all proper facilities will be afforded for the removal of <\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
yourself and your command, together with company arms and property, and all private property, to <\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
any post in the United States which you may select. The flag which you have upheld so long and with <\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
so much fortitude, under the most trying circumstances, may be saluted by you on taking it down.\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
After a brief discussion, Anderson and his staff unanimously refused Beauregard\u2019s terms. The Confederate emissaries subsequently asked when the garrison may run out of supplies. The major estimated April 15; however, with the imminent arrival of Lincoln\u2019s naval convoy, this answer proved unacceptable. At 3:20 am, the rebel officers departed Fort Sumter, warning that a bombardment\u2014and consequently the American Civil War\u2014would begin in one hour.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
Precisely at 4:30 am, a ten-inch mortar was launched across Charleston Harbor, bursting midair over Fort Sumter\u2014the unmistakable signal for the Confederate cannonade to commence. Ardent Virginia secessionist Edward Ruffin has long been credited with firing the first shot at Fort Sumter; however, that distinction belongs to Captain George S. James, the battery commander at Fort Johnson. Ruffin did, in fact, discharge the first projectile from the glorified \u201cIron Battery\u201d a few moments later.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
The Sumter garrison stood to reveille that morning from their bombproofs, safely hidden from the shrapnel and shell fragments flying about the parapet. Around 7 am, the Federals finally responded when Anderson\u2019s second-in-command Captain Abner Doubleday fired a 32-pounder towards Cummings Point. While the shot was fired accurately enough, the shell bounced harmlessly off the Iron Battery\u2019s armored exterior.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
Daylight witnessed intensified bombardment efforts and the arrival of Fox\u2019s relief flotilla, which remained beyond the range of rebel guns, much to Anderson\u2019s dismay. The sight of reinforcements was tantalizingly close, but as Captain Doubleday admitted, \u201c[entering the harbor] would probably have resulted in the sinking of every vessel.\u201d The Federal garrison quickly grew weary. Supplies reached critical lows amidst the hurricane of artillery projectiles and debris.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
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On April 13, Confederate field command authorized the use of \u201chot shot\u201d which caused incendiary damage to Sumter\u2019s wooden structures, consequently endangering its gunpowder magazine. Around 1 pm, a rebel projectile struck the fort\u2019s flagpole, felling the Stars and Stripes. Sensing an opportunity for peaceful intervention, Colonel Louis T. Wigfall\u2014a former Texas senator\u2014rowed towards embattled Fort Sumter under his own volition; a white handkerchief waving from his sword. The Confederate officer entered through an embrasure and presented himself as an envoy from General Beauregard. Wigfall praised the Federal command for its gallant defense of Fort Sumter and recapitulated negotiations for surrender. Major Anderson solemnly stated, \u201cI have already stated the terms to General Beauregard. Instead of noon the fifteenth, I will go now.\u201d Satisfied with Anderson\u2019s response, Wigfall sailed back to Cummings Point with the triumphant news. A ceasefire was instituted around 1:30 that afternoon.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
Shortly after Wigfall\u2019s departure, another boat carrying Stephen D. Lee and two other Confederate emissaries docked at Fort Sumter\u2019s wharf. What ensued was a frustrating and briefly confusing encounter for Federal leadership. The rebel envoy informed Fort Sumter\u2019s garrison that Colonel Wigfall had acted on his own accord and without Beauregard\u2019s knowledge, therefore the terms of his surrender negotiations were invalid. In an outburst of understandable outrage, Anderson threatened to run up the American flag and resume his defense, but the impetuous major was quickly restrained. Lee promised to convey Anderson\u2019s requests to General Beauregard, who expeditiously approved the conditions within the hour.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
Over three thousand projectiles were fired at Fort Sumter during the 34-hour bombardment. The terreplein level was completely destroyed. Craters pitted the inner walls and parade grounds. Flames smoldered from gutted barracks and charred gun carriages. Despite this interior damage, the exterior battlements remained in relatively good condition. Astonishingly, not a single soldier on either side was killed during the action\u2014a bloodless opening to America\u2019s bloodiest war.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
On April 14, prior to his garrison\u2019s departure, Major Anderson arranged a one-hundred-gun salute to the American flag. The demonstration began in earnest at two o\u2019clock that afternoon. During the 47th\u00a0salvo, a stray spark prematurely ignited several exposed charges, causing a fierce explosion that maimed six members of Company E. Private Daniel Hough\u2014killed instantly when molten shrapnel disarticulated his right arm\u2014was the first soldier to die in the Civil War. Another man, Private Edward Galloway, died several days later from his wounds. Major Anderson ordered the salute to cease at fifty rounds and had Private Hough buried on the parade ground. Around 4 pm, the Federal garrison marched out of Fort Sumter while the band played \u201cYankee Doodle.\u201d Aboard the steamer <\/span>Isabel<\/span><\/em>, Major Anderson\u2019s command sailed out of Charleston Harbor. Confederate soldiers on Cummings Point lined the beach; their heads uncovered in tribute to Sumter\u2019s brave defenders. Following the evacuation of Federal troops, Fort Sumter was occupied by Company B of the 1st\u00a0South Carolina Artillery Battalion and the Palmetto Guard volunteer militia.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
The port of Charleston prospered during the first two years of war\u2014its open trade network a crucial lifeline for Confederate welfare. The harbor\u2019s main shipping channel, which passed between Forts Moultrie and Sumter, was heavily defended by Confederate forces. Floating booms, barrel torpedoes, and other obstructions dissuaded enemy fleets from invasion. \u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
On April 7, 1863, nine Union ironclads attempted to break through Charleston Harbor\u2019s mine-laden shipping channel. When the lead monitor, <\/span>Weehawken<\/span><\/em>, came within range of Fort Sumter, rebel gunners assailed the frigate with unrelenting determination. Confederate batteries positioned on Sullivans Island, Fort Moultrie, and Cummings Point joined the barrage against the unwieldy ironclads, launching more than 2200 projectiles in two hours. Unable to organize an effective response, the flotilla\u2019s commander, Union Rear Admiral Samuel Du Pont, ordered retreat. Five Union vessels were severely damaged during the exchange. The monitor <\/span>Keokuk<\/span><\/em> was hit ninety times and sank the following day. Confederate scavengers recovered the wreckage and mounted one of its guns at Fort Sumter.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n