Fort Sumpter

To all:


I know we've rehashed this before about a zillion times, but I think it's always an interesting discussion. Besides, I can't wait for my latest lesson in revisionist history. The North attacked Sumter? It's own federal outpost? Please explain.

Be prepared to hear the same old, same old how the Union precipitated the crisis by the move from Moultrie to Sumter, by the attempt to resupply the garrison at Sumter, by refusing to negotiate for the surrender of Sumter to the rebels.

Be prepared to hear how it was all plot by Lincoln... how stupid Jefferson Davis and the other Confederate leaders must have been to be taken in in that way.

Don't expect to hear much about the facts that the move from Moultrie to Sumter was a command decision by Anderson not a dictate from D.C., about the rebels firing on the Star of the West, that by firing on Sumter the Confederate leaders were following the pledge of Virginia secessionist Roger A. Pryor to South Carolina that "I assure you that just as certain as tomorrow's sun will rise upon us, just so certain will Virginia be a member of the Southern Confederacy; and I will tell your governor what will put her in the Southern Confederacy in less than an hour by a Shrewsbury clock. Strike a blow!"

So the rebels struck a blow, fired on Sumter and forever after in defeat claimed that Lincoln or the devil or someone had made them do it.
 
Believe me, Scribe, I'm prepared. It just amazes me to see how real, documented history manages to go through the agenda grinder.


M.E. Wolf wrote:
Aiming in that direction for practice --sure would make me feel like I was the targeted mass; e.g. fort.

Kind of makes you realize just how fragile and tenuous things really were. Any misstep could have set things off.

And, if I may criss-cross threads here for a moment, if Anderson had access to hot shot (did he?), I think it's remarkable that he didn't pour a couple of rounds into the Charleston city proper. Those 6,000 troops ringing Sumter would have been needed instead to put out one heck of a campfire.

Fire-eaters, indeed.
 
Major Clewel: I noted the same thing. We're here hashing around this and that and we get blindsided by the most incredible statement. (Bear with me here, I'm really trying not to fry his bones.) I've been hanging around these board for some years, and I've never seen, from the most radical secesh, that the North started the fight at Sumter.

This is a new one for me. Maybe I should nap first?

Ole
 
He did have access to hotshot, he would not use it and there is real debate if he could have actually hit the city or not.

That's interesting.

Can you help me with something else then?

I believe Anderson had 11 columbiads on the barbette tier, which he opted not to use because it would have exposed his men to shot and shell. So is a columbiad a smoothbore? If so, would it have the range to reach Charleston (3 miles away, I think)? And would there have been a furnace on the barbette tier to furnish hot shot, or would it have to have been carried up from the parade ground?

Just curious. I need to go back to Sumter sometime.
 
I don't recall what type of guns were set up on improvised mountings and test fired. At max elevation it was known they wouldn't have reached the city itself. And there were only two set up such. As to the Columbiad being a smoothbore... I believe so but am not absolutely certain off hand.
 
Dear Johan_Steele and List Members;

This is what I found in the official records for Fort Sumter; as far as canons, etc.

Respectfully submitted for consideration,
M. E. Wolf



O.R.-- SERIES I--VOLUME 1 [S# 1] CHAPTER I.
CORRESPONDENCE AND ORDERS RELATING SPECIALLY TO THE OPERATIONS IN CHARLESTON HARBOR FROM OCTOBER 31, 1860, TO APRIL 14, 1861.
UNION CORRESPONDENCE, ETC.--#1
FORT SUMTER.
Fort Sumter is not completed, and is now occupied by the Engineers, under the direction of Lieutenant Snyder (Captain Foster being absent), who has employed upon it some hundred and ten men. A portion of the armament is mounted, but for its defense a few regular soldiers, to overawe the workmen and to control them, only would be necessary at present. The lower embrasures are closed, and if the main gate be secured a storming-party would require ladders twenty feet in length to gain admission. No arms are here, and I doubt if they would be serviceable in the hands of workmen, who would take the side of the stronger force present. Unless it should become necessary I think it advisable not to occupy this work so long as the mass of engineer workmen are engaged in it. The completion of those parts essential for the accommodation of a company might be hastened. The magazine contains thirty-nine thousand four hundred pounds of powder. The number of guns on hand is seventy-eight, consisting of 8 and 10 inch columbiads, 8-inch sea-coast howitzers. 42 pounder guns, and 32 and 24-pounders, with carriages, shot, shell,
implements, &c.


I'll note, that this fort was still being constructed and strengthened. One of many forts that President Monroe wanted built and funding was an issue; so it was still being worked on like many forts of the day.

Respectfully submitted for consideration,
M. E. Wolf
 
Just dropping in, but Sumter did have a furnace for heating shot. At one point, before the bombardment, a few gunner's dismounted a really big gun and set it up as a mortar. A test-firing plunked a shot close to the city's wharves and scared the bejeezus out of a few yachts.

The guns of Sumter, as situated, could not reach Charleston. That lone jury-rigged gun might have. But Anderson was in a defensive mode; he didn't have the manpower to use all his guns. The gun crews were just moved from gun to gun and were not allowed to man those exposed to incoming fire.

I can only imagine why Anderson didn't plunk a shot or two into the city proper. I would have. It remains that he didn't. And aside from that rogue gun, couldn't.

Just a thought.

Ole
 
Well, had Anderson had the capability to shoot into the city, with hot-shot or other munitions, would he have done so? If he had proceeded with that, wouldn't it have opened a whole new can of worms, so to speak, and given the rebels an excuse to accuse the Yankees of trying to kill civilians, thereby further "justifying" their bombardment in their own minds?

Anderson was a dedicated, military professional, following his orders to the letter, from what I've read. Did his orders give him permission to shoot at civilian targets? I don't know if they did or not. I can't imagine that Lincoln would have approved that. He might have even specifically proscribed such an action, for the reason that it would most likely dramatically escalate the already simmering situation. Adrenaline, already at a maximum for many of the rebels who had been training for that moment, could have easily soared to a much higher level after hearing news of a Yankee attack on civilians. Bombardment of the fort with the objective of a attaining a Yankee surrender, at first, could have easily turned into a unrestrained, vengeful lust for Yankee blood, and who knows where it could have gone from there? Just a thought.




Lee
 
Were I there, I'd have levelled Charleston. But Anderson was, and he was far, far more judicious. It remains that that was how it played out. I don't get to say what woulda, coulda, shoulda have happened. IT did happen exactly as history has it.

I need to get some sleep now.

Ole
 
Dear List Members;

In regard to the affairs of Fort Sumter; I think Major Anderson was restrained by several factors.

1. Last communication Anderson had from Washington was to continue making improvements on Ft. Sumter as to be the continued construction as designated.

2. The size of the garrison was maintainence size; not defensive or offensive; noted by the crew size vs. guns to be assigned individual gun crews.

3. The amount of food stores were woefully short for anybody ready for a conflict; which supports my feelings that Major Anderson was supervising the construction of Ft. Sumter; as had others were doing in this ring of defensive forts to be constructed in the Monroe Administration.
This is supported by the communications between the S.C. Governor and Beauregard of 'starving' Anderson out.

4. I am sure Major Anderson was wise enough to see in his position; what S.C. and the Provisional Government aka Montgomery Government was doing in relationship with the Buchanan Administration and the incoming Lincoln Administration.

5. Being deprived of his mail and dispatches; Major Anderson would probably consider that this was an act of things to come. Intercepted mail may have included changed instructions or not; the intentions of the US Government, etc. When this becomes a handicap; its out of the Major's hands now as its war between politics more than a military one.

Being loyal to the United States; he would do nothing. I am sure Major Anderson knew the mannerisms of Beauregard to know that patience was Anderson's virtue and not that of Beauregard and the CSA.

Anderson being fired at, even by accident--he had to know he was going to be judged by history made and history future. Honorable as Anderson was; he would have allowed the first shot; before responding.

Just some thoughts.

Respectfully submitted for consideration,
M. E. Wolf
 
On the issue of food, Lincoln informed the Corn-feds that he would send a food carrying tug to Sumter as humanitarian aid. He knew that if the Confederates fired upon her, it would give him the position of the moral advantage of not having fired the first shot.
 
Davis and his Cabinet, were perfectly aware of the situation and options available concerning the continuing crisis in Charleston Harbor and for Reason's of his own, made his decision, cooly and with great deliberation.
 
I came across an article in the New York Times archive for April 10, 1865. Anderson was given back the flag to put back up, and quite a crowd of party-goers was there. I guess it would be remembered more in history if the assassination hadn't happened.
 
Davis and his Cabinet, were perfectly aware of the situation and options available concerning the continuing crisis in Charleston Harbor and for Reason's of his own, made his decision, cooly and with great deliberation.

Perhaps one of the clearest voices of reason in the whole matter came from CSA Secretary of State Robert Toombs, who offered this piece of advice to Jefferson Davis while in deliberations on what to do with Sumter. This comes from Klein's book Days of Defiance:

"Davis argued for opening bombardment. The others agreed except for the reckless, hard-drinking Toombs, who surprised everyone by acting like a secretary of state in urging caution and prudence.

'The firing upon that fort will inaugurate a civil war greater than any the world has yet seen, and I do not feel competent to advise you,' he declared. As the debate warmed, Toombs paced restlessly back and forth, then wheeled abruptly on Davis and snapped, 'Mr. President, at this time, it is suicide, murder, and will lose us every friend at the North. You will wantonly strike a hornet's nest which extends from mountains to oceans, and legions, now quiet, will swarm out and sting us to death. It is unnecessary; it puts us in the wrong; it is fatal.'

"No one listened."
 
Ft. Sumter

Exactly right, the starting of the War was no accident. There would be no war, if Lincoln was not physically prevented from performing his legal and Constitutional duties of his Office of the President of All the United states, as every other President had a right to do, from Washington to Buchannan.
There could be No War, unless legally Constituted Authorities were forcibly prevented from performing their legal and Constitutional duties.
 
It has always been a puzzlement to me, why the bombardment was selected as a response to the news that some food was coming in. Nevermind that there was a backup plan to put in 200 soldiers. The fort was useless. Feed them, put in another 200 cannoniers. Next week, you have to feed them again. And the week after that.

Sumter was a symbol. Davis had to have it and Lincoln had to put up a fight over it. Them's the rules. Davis got himself suckered into taking it by force.

In a sense, he had to if for no other reason than that the CSA was a contender.

Ever think about what might have happened if the relief was simply allowed to go forward? Lincoln doesn't get to call up the militia. Nobody in the north gets honked off about shooting at the flag.

Davis was presented bait and he snapped it up. So there might have been another tipping point down the line somewhere. There would have been a war, sooner or later. So Sumter might have been replaced in history by Alexandria or Harpers Ferry or some other place.

But it remains that the shooting started when Beau was given leave to open fire. And it was the beginning. Can't go back and change it.

Ole
 
Fort Sumter

Davis had reason's of his own, no related to the *****ly pride of S.C. or the opinion of other countries. He and his Gov't was in the process of nation-building.
The Gulf Squadron was safely out (in his view, anyway) but the confederacy would not be viable, without the Border States, particularly Virginia.
Davis and his Cabinet considered the problem for some time and came to the conclusion (minus Sec'y of State, Toombs) that War better suited the needs of forming a confederate nation-state, than following in lock-step with Lincoln's policy of delay.
Delay served Lincoln's and the Union's purpose of bringing the seceding states back under the authority of the Constitution, not Davis' and the confederacy's of creating an independent Nation.
 
Dear OpnDownfall;

There were other warnings by others directed towards President Davis as well as the collective members of the Confederate States of America government; to which moved from a Provisional status.

Like Toombs; someone I wouldn't want to be toe-to-toe with because he was 'that good' of a fighter/campaigner --if he isn't willing, I wouldn't want to be willing. Even the most vicious of fighters know when to fight and when not to.

You are correct. Like so many wise men--to whom knew politics and military; weren't listened to. Sounds like parental/adult advice and a adolescent situation; even if the adolecent was the newly formed CSA.

Thank you for raising the known warning that Robert Toombs made before the Ft. Sumter issue came into being.

Just some thoughts.

Respectfully submitted for consideration,
M. E. Wolf
 
Back
Top