Open main menu
Home
Random
Recent changes
Special pages
Community portal
Preferences
About Wikipedia
Disclaimers
Incubator escapee wiki
Search
User menu
Talk
Dark mode
Contributions
Create account
Log in
Editing
Fort Sumter
(section)
Warning:
You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you
log in
or
create an account
, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.
Anti-spam check. Do
not
fill this in!
====Preparing for war==== On December 26, 1860, only six days after [[South Carolina in the American Civil War#Secession|South Carolina seceded]] from the Union, [[U.S. Army]] [[Major Robert Anderson]] abandoned the indefensible [[Fort Moultrie]], [[Touch hole|spiking]] its large guns, burning its gun carriages, and taking its smaller cannon with him. He secretly relocated companies E and H (127 men, 13 of them musicians) of the [[1st U.S. Artillery]] to Fort Sumter on his own initiative, without orders from his superiors.<ref name=Elliot>{{full citation needed|date=December 2020}}</ref>{{rp|117}}{{full citation needed|date=December 2020}}<ref name=Elliot/>{{rp|103}}<ref>Robert Anderson to Rev. R. B. Duane, December 30, 1860</ref>{{full citation needed|date=December 2020}}<ref>Robert Anderson to Robert N. Gourdin, December 27, 1860.</ref>{{full citation needed|date=December 2020}}<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.usregulars.com/usartillery/1us_art.html |title=History of the 1st U.S. Artillery |first=William, Major, 1st U.S. Artillery |last=Haskin |year=1896 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20100725173821/http://www.usregulars.com/usartillery/1us_art.html |archive-date= July 25, 2010 }}</ref> 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]] that should have been available were in place, due to military downsizing by President [[James Buchanan]].{{citation needed|date=December 2020}} In a letter delivered January 31, 1861, [[Francis Wilkinson Pickens|South Carolina Governor Pickens]] demanded of [[James Buchanan|President Buchanan]] that he surrender Fort Sumter because "I regard that possession is not consistent with the dignity or safety of the State of South Carolina."<ref>{{cite book|last=James Buchanan|title=The Works of James Buchanan: Comprising His Speeches, State Papers, and Private Correspondence|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=v5E9AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA178|year=1911|page=178|isbn=978-1-62376-744-0}}</ref> Over the next few months repeated calls for evacuation of Fort Sumter<ref name=Elliot/>{{rp|13}}<ref>{{cite book|last1=Harris|first1=W.A.|title=The record of Fort Sumter, from its occupation by Major Anderson, to its reduction by South Carolina troops during the administration of Governor Pickens|date=1862|publisher=South Carolinian Steam Job Printing Office|location=Columbia, SC|page=7|url=http://digital.tcl.sc.edu/cdm/ref/collection/sclpam/id/1204|access-date=September 27, 2014}}</ref> from the government of South Carolina and then from [[Confederate States of America|Confederate]] [[Brigadier General]] [[P. G. T. Beauregard]] were ignored. Union attempts to resupply and reinforce the garrison were repulsed on January 9, 1861, when shots fired by cadets from [[The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina|the Citadel]] prevented the steamer ''[[Star of the West]]'', hired 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, [[Abraham Lincoln|President Lincoln]] ordered a fleet of ships, under the command of [[Gustavus Fox|Gustavus V. Fox]], to attempt entry into Charleston Harbor and supply Fort Sumter. The ships assigned were the steam sloops-of-war [[USS Pawnee (1859)|USS ''Pawnee'']] and [[USS Powhatan (1850)|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, FL), armed screw steamer [[USS Pocahontas (1852)|USS ''Pocahontas'']], [[United States Revenue Cutter Service|Revenue Cutter]] [[USRC Harriet Lane (1857)|USRC ''Harriet Lane'']], steamer ''Baltic'' transporting about 200 troops, composed of companies C and D of the 2nd U.S. Artillery, and three hired tugboats with added protection against small arms fire to be used to tow troop and supply barges directly to Fort Sumter.<ref name=Elliot/>{{rp|240}}<ref>Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies Series I β Volume 4. pp. 223β225.</ref> By April 6, 1861, the first ships began to set sail for their rendezvous off the [[Charleston Bar]]. The first to arrive was ''[[USRC Harriet Lane (1857)|Harriet Lane]]'', on the evening of April 11, 1861.<ref name=Elliot/>{{rp|304}}
Edit summary
(Briefly describe your changes)
By publishing changes, you agree to the
Terms of Use
, and you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the
CC BY-SA 4.0 License
and the
GFDL
. You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license.
Cancel
Editing help
(opens in new window)