Moving this to the right thread.
Hanny said:
nope war dept has it there are 3 federal posts in charelston, you hav einvented sumpter as being another one mmaking it 4, since all the orderes refewr to the 3 federal forts, your basleless invention is exposed as lie.
Your ignorance abounds. In late 1860, Fitz-John Porter made an inspection tour of the US Federal forts in Charleston Harbor:
[begin quote]
WASHINGTON, D. C., November 11, 1860.
Colonel S. COOPER,
Adjutant-General, Washington City:
SIR: In compliance with instructions from the Secretary of War of the 6th instant, I inspected the fortifications and troops in Charleston Harbor, and have now the honor to report as follows:
FORT MOULTRIE.
This post is garrisoned by Companies E and H, First Artillery, and the regimental band is quartered there.
State of the command.
Field and staff.-Bvt. Colonel John L. Gardner, lieutenant-colonel First Artillery, commanding; Asst. Surg. Samuel W. Crawford, medical department.
Company officers.-Captain Miner Knowlon, Company H, absent sick since August 1, 1850; Captain Abner Doubleday, commanding Company E; Bvt. Captain Truman Seymour, first lieutenant, commanding Company H; First Lieutenant Otis H. Tillinghast, regimental quartermaster, and acting adjutant at regimental headquarters, absent since May 29, 1860; First Lieutenant Theodore Talbot, Company H; First Lieutenant Jefferson C. Davis, Company E; Second Lieutenant Samuel Breck, Company E, on duty at the Military Academy since September 13, 1860; Second Lieutenant Norman J. Hall, Company H, acting assistant quartermaster and acting assistant commissary of subsistence since September 1, 1860, and post adjutant.
Enlisted men.-Band and staff, 9 musicians, 1 hospital steward, 1 ordnance sergeant absent.
Companies E and H, for duty, 36; on extra or daily duty, 12; sick, 4; in arrest or confinement, 11; absent in confinement, 2. Total, 64. Present at inspection, 30; artillery drill, 21; infantry drill, 23; comprising all who, in the opinion of the commanding officer, could with propriety and safety be taken from other duties.
The officers-Lieutenant Talbot in delicate health excepted-are in good health, and capable of enduring the fatigues incident to any duty that may be demanded of them. They are sober, intelligent, and active, and appear acquainted with their general duties, perform them with some exceptions punctually and promptly, and all are anxious to give the commanding officer the aid to which he is entitled.
The non-commissioned officers and privates appear intelligent and obedient, but not move with an alacrity and spirit indicating the existence of a strict discipline.
* * * *
A portion of the work, interior and exterior, is necessarily encumbered by material being used in repairing parapets, beds for guns, and arranging for the defense of the fort. In other respects the police of the post is good.
* * * *
The hospital storehouses are outside the forts. All are old frame buildings, highly inflammable, and not secured by the presence or watchful eye of a sentinel from the acts of evil-disposed persons. An incendiary could in a few minutes destroy all the supplies and workshops of the command.
Lieutenant hall states that he has some difficulty in procuring suitable four and pork in Charleston, sometimes having to return the former, while the latter cannot at times be purchased. He has about two months' supply of provisions for the present command.
* * * *
The ungraded state of the fort invites attack, if such design exists, and much discretion and prudence are required on the part of the commander to restore the proper security without exciting a community prompt to misconstrue actions of authority. I think this can be effected by a proper commander, without checking in the slightest the progress of the engineers in completing the works of defense. Any interference with that labor would probably rouse suspicions and crate excitement. All could have been easily arranged several weeks since, when the danger was foreseen by the present commander. Now much delicacy must be practiced. The garrison is weak, and I recommend that a favorable opportunity be taken to fill up the companies with the best-drilled recruits available.
* * * *
The following events, which transpired the day I arrived at Fort Moultrie, I deem proper to report here, as I have orally heretofore, as they relate to an act of unusual importance, tending to indicate the inflammable and impulsive state of the public mind in Charleston-to a great extend characteristic of the feeling manifested throughout the State-and necessity for prudence and judgment on the part of the commanding officer in all transactions which may bear upon the relations of the Federal Government to the State of South Carolina, and of the Army to our citizens. I regard it especially important to refer to them, as Colonel Gardner informed me he should make no report.
The military storekeeper has at the arsenal in the city a large number of arms and quantity of ammunition, which, fearing it might fall into improper hands, he desired to secure to the United States, and under counsel from Colonel Gardner he packed them up and held in readiness to be shipped to Fort Moultrie whenever Colonel Gardner should send for them. Availing himself of an approved requisition for paints, lacquers, 7c., needed at the post, he sent Captain Saymour to the city for the supply and other articles that the military storekeeper might wish to have stored at the post, and thus secured in case of negro insurrections. The owner of the wharf refused permission to ship them. A crowd collected, and suspecting an attempt on the part of the Government ot smuggle (it being late in the evening, or after dark) arms, ammunition, &c., from the city, to be used against it, or to prevent their use by citizens in case of disturbances, would not permit the property to be carried away.
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.
CASTEL PINCKNEY.
Castle Pinckney commands Charleston, and its armament is complete. Here the powder belonging to the arsenal in the city is stored. A company can be accommodated here, while a small force under an officer would secure it against surprise or even a bold attack of such enemies likely to undertake it. It is under the charge of an ordnance sergeant, who keeps everything in as good order as possible. The quarters and magazine require repairs. Under present circumstances I would not recommend its occupation.
I am, colonel, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
F. J. PORTER,
Assistant Adjutant-General.
[end quote] [OR, Series I, Vol I, pp. 70-72]
Fort Sumter was one of the Federal Forts recognized by the US Government. What happened to Fort Johnson, you may ask?
As Capt. John Foster, Chief Engineer, shows in his report, Fort Johnson was too dilapidated.
[begin quote]
Extracts from annual report (October 1, 1861) of Captain John G. Foster, U. S. Corps of Engineer.
* * * * * *
Castle Pinckney, Charleston Harbor, South Carolina.-Some necessary repairs were commenced upon this work in December, 1860, but before these were completed the fort was seized by the troops of the State of South Carolina, on the 27th of December.
Lieutenant R. K. Meade, Corps of Engineers, who was in the immediate charge, was suffered to leave with the workmen; but all the public property in the fort was taken possession of, including the mess property and one month's provisions for the Engineer force. The armament of the fort was all mounted, except two or three guns on the barbette tier and one 42-pounder in the casemate tier. The carriages were in good order, and pretty good. The magazine was well furnished with implements, and also contained some powder. The fort was repaired three years ago, and was generally in excellent condition, one of the cisterns only wanting repairs.
Fort Johnson, Charleston, South Carolina.-The barracks and quarters were in such bad order as to be almost uninhabitable, and a large sum would be needed to repair them. The position was taken possession of by the State troops on the 2nd of January, 1861. A small battery of three guns was soon after built, adjoining the barracks.
Fort Sumter, Charleston Harbor, South Carolina.-Vigorous operations were commenced on this fort in the month of August, 1860, with the view of placing it in a good defensive position as soon as possible. The casemate arches supporting the second tier of guns were all turned; the granite flagging for the second tier was laid on the right face of the work; the floors laid, and the iron stairways put up, in the east barracks; the traverse circles of the first tier of guns reset; the bluestone flagging laid in all the guns' rooms of the right and left faces of the first tier; and the construction of the embrasures of the second tier commenced at the time the fort was occupied by Major Anderson's command, on the 26th of December, 1860. The fears of an immediate attack, and disloyal feelings, induced the greater portion of the Engineer employes to leave at this time. But those that remained, fifty-five in number, reduced towards the end of the investment to thirty-five, were made very effective in preparing for a vigorous defense.
The armament of the fort was mounted and supplied with maneuvering implements; machicoulis galleries, splinter-proof shelters, and traverses were constructed; the openings left for the embrasures of the second tier were filled with brick and stone and earth, and those in the gorge with stone and iron and lead concrete; mines were established in the wharf and along the gorge; the parade was cleared, and communications opened to all parts of the fort and through the quarters.
The fort was bombarded on the 12th and 13th of April by the rebels, and evacuated by Major Anderson's command on the 14th of April. During the bombardment, the officers' quarters were set on fire by hot shot from the rebel batteries, and they, with the roofs of the barracks, were entirely consumed. The magazines were uninjured by the fire. The bombardment dismounted one gun, disabled two others, and ruined the stair towers and the masonry walls projecting above the parapet. No breach was effected in the walls, and the greatest penetration made by successive shots was twenty-two inches. Nearly all the material that had been obtained to construct the embrasures of the second tier, to flag this tier and the remainder of the first tier, and to finish the barracks, was used up in the preparations for defense.
Fort Moultrie, Charleston Harbor, South Carolina.-The work of preparing this fort for a vigorous defense commenced in August, 1860, and was diligently prosecuted up the day of its evacuation, December 26, 1860. In this time the large accumulation of sand, which overtopped the scarp wall on the sea front, was removed to the front and formed into a glaciis; a wet ditch, fifteen feet wide, dug around the fort; two flanking caponieres of brick built, to flank with their fire the three water fronts; a bastioned for musketry constructed at the northwest angle; a picket fence built around the fort, bordering the ditch, and protected by a small glacis; merlons constructed on the whole of the east front; communication opened through the quarters, a bridge built, connecting them with the guard-house, and the latter looppholed for musketry, so as to serve for a citadel.
Means were also furnished to transport Major Anderson's command, and such public property as could be removed before the occupation of Fort Moultrie by the rebels, to Fort Sumter. Before evacuating the fort, the guns were spiked, the gun carriages on the front looking towards Fort Sumter burned, and the flagstaff cut down. A considerable quantity of Engineer implements and materials were unavoidably left in the fort.
Respectfully submitted.
J. G. FOSTER,
Captain, Engineers.
[end quote] [Ibid., pp. 4-5]
Hanny said:
really secesion in 1860 is unconstional, you can show me case law that this is so in 1860?, or are you a liar?.
You're the only one who has a problem with the truth. See the thread on legality of secession for the answer. This one is about Fort Sumter.
Hanny said:
Not the acount anderson himslef gave,nor the reason he gave for moving on his own responsoblity.
You're lying again.
[begin quote]
FORT SUMTER, S. C., December 26, 1860-8 p.m. (Received A. G. O., December 29.)
COLONEL: I have the honor to report that I have just completed, by the blessing of God, the removal to this fort of all of my garrison, except the surgeon, four non-commissioned officers, and seven men. We have one year's supply of hospital stores and about four months' supply of provisions for my command. I left orders to have all the guns at Fort Moultrie spiked, and the carriages of the 32-pounders, which are old, destroyed. I have sent orders to Captain Foster, who remains at Fort Moultrie, to destroy all the ammunition which he cannot send over. The step which I have taken was, in my opinion, necessary to prevent the effusion of blood.
Respectfully, your obedient servant,
ROBERT ANDERSON,
Major, First Artillery, Commanding.
Colonel S. COOPER, Adjutant-General.
[end quote] [Ibid., p. 2]