GrantVSLee
Cadet
- Joined
- Dec 27, 2016
- Location
- Mobile, Alabama
Here's a bit of trivia on the first battle of the Civil War.
- The first shot of the war was fired by the Confederacy. It was a cannon fired by Southern diarist Edmund Ruffin.
- The first Union shot of the war was fired by Captain Abner Doubleday, a fiery South-hating Unionist.
- The man who was nearly the first death of the war was Roger A. Pryor of Virginia, a member of the party sent to negotiate the Union garrison's surrender. While waiting for reply, Pryor--overcome by thirst--found a stray bottle of an unknown liquid. Without thinking, Pryor took a drink--of what turned out to be iodine. Fortunately, a Federal doctor saw the event and pumped Pryor's stomach of the poison.
- The first "house divided" scenario of the war was the relationship between the two opposite commanders, Union Major Robert Anderson and Confederate General Pierre Beauregard. The elder Anderson had been Beauregard's artillery instructor at West Point. Beauregard was polite to his former teacher and even sent him gifts.
- The first flag of truce waved in the war was tied to the end of a sword. This "flag" was a small handkerchief, and naturally was impossible to see from a distance.
- The first Confederate death of the war was...a horse.
- The first Union deat of the war occured...after the battle. Major Anderson was allowed to fire a 100-gun salute to signal the lowering of the Stars and Stripes from Fort Sumter. The very last gun misfired, causing an explosion that killed one and seriously wounded all the others.