The Fort: Johnson located on the NE point of James Island, Charleston, SC
There appears to be some confusion as to who really fired the shot and I found sources to support 2 men - though most sources seems to lean to the following:
Under orders from Captain George S. James; Lieutenant Henry Saxton Farley of the 1st South Carolina Artillery wrote to Dr. Lebby in 1893:
“The circumstances attending the firing of the first gun at Sumter are quite fresh in my memory. Captain James stood on my right, with watch in hand, and at the designated moment gave me the order to fire. I pulled the lanyard, having already carefully inserted a friction tube, and discharged a thirteen-inch mortar shell, which was the right of battery. In one of the issues of a
Charleston evening paper, which appeared shortly after the reduction of Fort Sumter, you will find it
stated that
Lieutenant Farley fired the first gun, and Lieutenant Gibbes the second.” - Source #1.
1.
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Journals/SCHGM/12/3/The_First_Shot_on_Fort_Sumter*.html
2.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/63470385/henry-saxon-farley
I found this article that claimed there is some “historical debate over who actually pulled the lanyard”, (my source below #1 gives the credit to Captain George S. James the correction given by none other than
Captain Stephen D. Lee of Beauregard's staff who corrected "an error which has almost passed into historical fact . . . Edmund Ruffin, of Virginia, did not fire the first gun at Fort Sumter, but that
Captain George S. James, of South Carolina . . . did fire it.”)
However, during a re-enactment of the 150th Anniversary, April 12, 2011, “the re-enactment organizers gave the honor to Lt. Henry Saxon Farley, whose descendants attended Tuesday’s event.”#2
1.
https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/civil_war_series/14/sec3.htm
2.
https://www.thestate.com/news/special-reports/article14392631.html
My last source stated that if Captain James gave the order (and everyone seems to agree on this), then
Lieutenant Henry Farley fired the shot as James would not give himself an order and I agree with this.
American Civil War: Facts and Fictions, by James R. Hedtke, Pages 35-38.