Article from the Charleston Mercury describing the Bombardment of Fort Sumter, 13 April 1861

Printable PDF Version

Transcription

Document Description:

At 4:30 in the early morning of April 12, 1861, Confederate gun batteries opened fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, signaling the start of the Civil War.  After 34 hours of battle, Major Robert Anderson, commander of the federal troops, surrendered the fort and withdrew to New York.  The Charleston Mercury article appeared on April 13 while the attack was still in progress. The Mercury described the bombardment of Fort Sumter as a "Splendid Pyrotechnic Exhibition" and boasted that "the Administration of the old Government may abandon at once and forever its vain and visionary hope of forcible control over the Confederate States. "

Immediately after Fort Sumter was secured by Confederate Troops, General P.G.T. Beauregard , commander of Confederate forces in Charleston ordered that fortifications be built and enhanced along coastal regions south and north of Charleston, such as Edisto Island, Bulls Bay, and the South Santee River region.  Within a month after Fort Sumter, President Lincoln ordered a naval blockade and Union ships soon appeared near Charleston.  Crowds gathered at the Charleston Battery to view the pyrotechnics while church bells rang.  Celebrations took place for days among Charlestonians, as optimism ran high for the Confederate cause. 

After the surrender of Fort Sumter in April 1861, seven months passed as both sides formulated war strategies and prepared for battle.  The Confederates took a defensive role by placing 10,000 troops along the coast, while Union forces sought to implement a complete naval blockade of Atlantic and Gulf ports.  In accordance with this strategy, Union ships surrounded many of the coastal areas around South Carolina throughout the war.   Confederate troops would occupy Fort Sumter until 1865, when General William T. Sherman’s march through the state cut supply lines to the fort.

On April 14, 1865, exactly four years after the beginning of the Civil War, a special ceremony took place at Fort Sumter, and Robert Anderson raised the same American flag that he had lowered in 1861.  Riding in The Planter driven by Robert Smalls himself, a crowd of more than three thousand black Carolinians gathered on the island fort to attend the event.  Among those in attendance was Denmark Vesey’s son and Martin Delaney, the highest-ranking black Union officer at the time.  Abolitionists, such as William Lloyd Garrison and Henry Ward Beecher, were also there.  The assassination of Abraham Lincoln occurred that very evening, with the 16th president dying the next day.

Citation:

“Bombardment of Fort Sumter!”  Charleston Mercury.  13 April 1861.  Newspapers on microfilm, South Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina.

Transcription

BOMBARDMENT
of
FORT SUMTER!

Splendid Pyrotechnic Exhibition.

FORT MOULTRIE
IMPREGNABLE.

THE FLOATING BATTERY
and
Stevens' Battery a Success

'Nobody Hurt' on Our Side,
ETC., ETC., ETC.

As may have been anticipated from our notice of the military movements in our city yesterday, the bombardment of Fort Sumter, so long and anxiously expected, has at length become a fact accomplished. The restless activity of the night before was gradually worn down, the citizens who had thronged the battery through the night, anxious and weary, had sought their homes, the Mounted Guard which had kept watch and ward over the city, with the first grey streak of morning were preparing retire, when two guns in quick succession from Fort Johnson announced the opening of the drama.

Upon that signal, the circle of batteries with which the grim fortress of Fort Sumter is beleaguered opened fire. The outline of this great volcanic crater was illuminated with a line of twinkling lights; the clustering shells illuminated the sky above it; the balls clattered thick as hail upon its sides; our citizens, aroused to a forgetfulness of their fatigue through many weary hours, rushed again to the points of observation; and so, at the break of day, amidst the bursting of bombs, and the roaring of ordinance, and before thousands of spectators, whose homes, and liberties, and lives were at stake, was enacted this first great scene in the opening drama of what, it is presumed, will be a most momentous military act. It may be a drama of but a single act. The madness which inspires it may depart with this single paroxysm. It is certain that the people of the North have rankling at their hearts no sense of wrong to be avenged; and exhibiting to those
who expect power to reconstruct the shattered Union, its utter inadequacy to accomplish a single step in that direction, the Administration of the old Government may abandon at once and forever its vain and visionary hope of forcible control over the Confederate States. But it may not be so; they may persist still longer in assertions of their power, and if so, they will arouse an independent spirit in the South, which will exact a merciless and fearful retribution.

But to return to our report. The act which we have undertaken to record was so unique as might be supposed there were few incidents to mark it. below we have presented the reports as they successively arrived from the different batteries, and which when placed on our bulletin board, were received with the most eager interest by the mass of anxious friends who at every instant of the day came crowding to our office.

There were several circumstances, however, developed by the day experience which it is important to notice.

It affords us infinite pleasure to record that Fort Moultrie has fully sustained the prestige of its glorious name. It fired very nearly gun for gun with Fort Sumter. We counted guns from eleven to twelve, and found them to be 42 to 46, while the advantage was unquestionably upon the side of Fort Moultrie. In that fort not a gun was dismounted, not a wound received, not the slightest permanent injury sustained by any of its defences, while every ball from Fort Moultrie left its mark upon Fort Sumter. Many of its shells were dropped into that fort, and Lieut. JOHN MITCHELL, the worthy son of that patriot sire, who has so nobly vindicated the cause of the South, has the honor of dismounting two of its parapet guns by a single shot from one of the Columbiads, which at the time he had the office of directing.

The famous iron batteries - the one at Cummings' Point - named for Mr. C.H. STEVENS, the inventor, and the celebrated Floating Battery, constructed under the direction of Capt. HAMILTON, have fully vindicated the correctness of their conception. Shot after shot fell upon them and glanced harmless away, while their favorable position their shots fell with effect upon Fort Sumter, and the southeast pancopee, under the fire of the STEVENS' battery, at nightfall, if not actually breached, was badly damaged. At this battery the honor of firing the first gun was accorded to the venerable EDMUND RUFFIN, of Virginia, who marched to the rendezvous at the sound of the alarm on Monday night, and who, when asked by some person who did not know him, to what company he belonged, replied, that in which there is a vacancy.'

It were vain to attempt an exhibition of the enthusiasm and fearless intrepidity of our citizens in every department of this eventful day. Boats passed from post to post without the slightest hesitation under the guns of Fort Sumter, and with high and low, old and young, rich and poor, in uniform or without, the common wish and constant effort was to reach the posts of action; and amid a bombardment resisted with the most consummate skill and perseverance, and with the most efficient appliances of military art and science, it is a most remarkable circumstance, and one which exhibits the infinite goodness of an overruling Providence, that, so far as we have been able to learn from the most careful inquiry, not the slightest injury has been sustained by the defenders of their country.

It may be added, as an incident that contributed no little interest to the action of the day, that from early in the forenoon three vessels-of-war, two of them supposed to be the Harriet Lane and Pawnee, lay just beyond the bar, inactive spectators of the contest. Whether they will attempt to enter during the night and encounter the batteries on either side that line the shore, is yet to be determined; if so we will present the record of a bloody issue in our next.

Fort Sumter did not return the fire of our batteries for over two hours, and ceased firing at seven p.m., though our men continued to the hour of our going to press.

Annexed are the reports above referred to, which appeared on our Bulletin.

Correlating SC Social Studies Academic Standards:

Standard 3-4: The student will demonstrate an understanding of the events that led to the Civil War, the course of the War and Reconstruction, and South Carolina’s role in these events.

Indicator 3.4-4 Outline the course of the Civil War and South Carolina’s role in significant events, including the Secession Convention, the firing on Fort Sumter, the Union blockade of Charleston, and Sherman’s march through South Carolina.

Standard 4-6: The student will demonstrate an understanding of the Civil War and its impact on America.

Indicator 4-6.4 Summarize significant key battles, strategies, and turning points of the Civil War—including the battles of Fort Sumter and Gettysburg, the Emancipation Proclamation, the significance of the Gettysburg Address, and the surrender at Appomattox—and the role of African Americans in the War.

Standard 8-3: The student will demonstrate an understanding of the causes and events leading to, and the course of, the American Civil War.

Indicator 8-3.5 Compare the military strategies of the North and South with regard to specific events and geographic locations in South Carolina, including the capture of Port Royal, the Union blockade of Charleston, and Sherman’s march through the state.

Standard USHC-4: The student will demonstrate an understanding of the causes and the course of the Civil War and Reconstruction in America.

Indicator USHC-4.3 Outline the course and outcome of the Civil War, including the role of African American military units; the impact of the Emancipation Proclamation; and the geographic, political, and economic factors involved in the defeat of the Confederacy.

Standard 3-4: The student will demonstrate an understanding of the events that led to the Civil War, the course of the War and Reconstruction, and South Carolina’s role in these events.

Indicator 3-4.4 Outline the course of the Civil War and South Carolina’s role in significant events, including the Secession Convention, the firing on Fort Sumter, the Union blockade of Charleston, and Sherman’s march through South Carolina.

Standard 4-6: The student will demonstrate an understanding of the Civil War and its impact on America.

Indicator 4-6.3 Explain how specific events and issues led to the Civil War, including the sectionalism fueled by issues of slavery in the territories, state’s rights, the election of 1860, and secession.

Standard 8-3: The student will demonstrate an understanding of the American Civil War—its causes and effects and the major events that occurred during that time.

Indicator 8-3.4 Compare the attitudes of the unionists, cooperationists, and secessionists in South Carolina and summarize the reasons that the members of the South Carolina secession convention in 1860 voted unanimously to secede from the Union, including concerns about states’ rights and fears about abolition.

Standard USHC-4: The student will demonstrate an understanding of the causes and the course of the Civil War and Reconstruction in America.

Statement on use and reproduction