Attack on Fort Sumter (1861): The First Shots of the Civil War

The attack on Fort Sumter was the Confederate bombardment of a federal fort in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina, on 12-13 April 1861, which forced its small Union garrison to surrender. It was the opening engagement of the American Civil War. No one was killed by the shelling itself, yet the attack transformed a political crisis over secession into a war that would cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans.

Background: the secession crisis

Abraham Lincoln won the presidential election of 6 November 1860 on a platform opposing the spread of slavery into the western territories. To many white Southerners, after years of conflict over Bleeding Kansas and John Brown’s raid, his victory signalled that the federal government would soon be controlled by enemies of slavery.

South Carolina acted first, voting to leave the Union on 20 December 1860. By 1 February 1861 six more states of the Deep South had followed: Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas. In February their delegates met at Montgomery, Alabama, formed the Confederate States of America and chose Jefferson Davis as president.

As states seceded, they seized most federal forts, arsenals and customs houses within their borders. A handful of posts remained in Union hands, including Fort Pickens in Florida and Fort Sumter at the mouth of Charleston Harbor. Because Charleston was the cradle of secession, Sumter became the focus of national attention.

Anderson moves to Fort Sumter

In late 1860 the federal garrison in Charleston Harbor was based at Fort Moultrie on Sullivan’s Island, an old fort that was easy to attack from land. Its commander, Major Robert Anderson, was a Kentucky-born career officer and former slaveholder who nevertheless remained loyal to the United States.

On the night of 26 December 1860, Anderson secretly moved his men by boat to Fort Sumter, a massive brick fort on an artificial island in the harbour entrance. Begun in 1829, it was designed for about 650 men and 135 guns but was still unfinished. South Carolina’s leaders denounced the move as a breach of faith and occupied Fort Moultrie and the other harbour defences.

On 9 January 1861 the unarmed merchant steamer Star of the West, chartered by President James Buchanan’s government to bring troops and supplies, was fired on by a battery manned partly by cadets from The Citadel, the military college in Charleston. The ship turned back. Anderson held his fire, and an uneasy standoff followed for three months.

Lincoln’s dilemma

Lincoln took office on 4 March 1861. On his first full day he learned that Anderson’s garrison would run out of food within about six weeks. He faced a stark choice. Withdrawing would amount to recognising the Confederacy and might encourage further secession; reinforcing by force could start a war and push the Upper South states, such as Virginia, into the Confederacy.

Several cabinet members, including Secretary of State William H. Seward, favoured evacuation. After weeks of debate Lincoln chose a middle course. He would send provisions only, food for the garrison but not troops or ammunition, unless the attempt was resisted. On 6 April he sent a messenger to inform South Carolina’s governor, Francis Pickens, of the plan. If the Confederates fired, they would be firing on a mission of supply.

The Confederate decision

The notice put the choice to Jefferson Davis and his cabinet in Montgomery. Some Confederate leaders warned that firing first would unite the North; others argued that tolerating a federal fort in Charleston would undermine the new nation’s claim to independence. Davis authorised the commander at Charleston, Brigadier General P. G. T. Beauregard, to demand the fort’s evacuation and to reduce it if refused.

Beauregard, a Louisianan, had studied artillery at West Point under Anderson himself. On the afternoon of 11 April his aides rowed out to Sumter with the demand. Anderson refused but remarked that his men would be starved out within a few days anyway. Further talks after midnight failed to agree terms, and at about 3:20 a.m. on 12 April the aides informed Anderson that the Confederate batteries would open fire within an hour.

The bombardment

At about 4:30 a.m. on 12 April 1861 a mortar at Fort Johnson on James Island fired a signal shell that burst over Fort Sumter. Within minutes batteries on Sullivan’s Island, Morris Island and elsewhere around the harbour joined in. Thousands of Charlestonians watched from rooftops and the waterfront, among them the diarist Mary Boykin Chesnut, whose account of the night became a classic.

Anderson waited until daylight to respond, partly to save ammunition. At around 7 a.m. Captain Abner Doubleday fired the first Union shot. Short of men, Anderson kept his gunners in the lower, casemated tier of guns, which was protected but lacked the heaviest cannon and the range to do serious damage. The garrison numbered about 85 officers and men, along with some 40 civilian workmen.

Confederate shells and red-hot shot set the wooden barracks on fire repeatedly. On 13 April the flames spread toward the powder magazine, forcing the men to throw powder barrels into the sea and leaving the fort choked with smoke. A small relief fleet organised by Gustavus Fox arrived off the harbour bar but could do nothing: rough seas, the absence of the warship Powhatan, which had been sent to Florida, and the scale of the bombardment kept it out.

By the afternoon of 13 April the flagstaff had been shot down and the fort was burning. Former US senator Louis Wigfall, acting without authority, rowed out to propose surrender. Anderson agreed to evacuate, and formal terms were settled that evening. Over roughly 34 hours, Confederate batteries had fired more than 3,000 shots and shells. Remarkably, no one on either side was killed by enemy fire.

Surrender and the first deaths

On 14 April the garrison was allowed to march out with its flag and to salute it with cannon fire. During the salute, which was cut from 100 to 50 guns, a cartridge exploded prematurely. Private Daniel Hough was killed instantly, becoming the first soldier to die in the Civil War, and Private Edward Galloway was mortally wounded. The garrison then boarded a ship of the relief fleet and sailed for New York, where Anderson was welcomed as a hero.

Key people

• Robert Anderson: Union commander whose quiet loyalty and restraint made him a national figure in the North.
• P. G. T. Beauregard: Confederate commander at Charleston, celebrated in the South as the first hero of the war; he went on to command at the First Battle of Bull Run.
• Abraham Lincoln: President whose decision to resupply rather than reinforce placed the choice to fire on the Confederacy.
• Jefferson Davis: Confederate president who authorised the attack.
• Abner Doubleday: Union officer who fired the garrison’s first shot; the later claim that he invented baseball is a myth.

By the numbers

Myths and facts

• Myth: Edmund Ruffin fired the first shot of the Civil War. Fact: The signal shell came from Fort Johnson; Ruffin fired one of the first shots from Cummings Point afterwards.
• Myth: Lincoln tricked the Confederates into firing first. Fact: Historians debate his intentions, but the record shows he informed South Carolina openly that he was sending only provisions, leaving the decision to attack with the Confederate government.
• Myth: The battle caused heavy casualties. Fact: Nobody was killed by enemy fire; the only deaths were caused by an accident during the surrender salute.

Consequences and legacy

The attack electrified the North. On 15 April Lincoln issued a proclamation calling for 75,000 militia to suppress “combinations too powerful to be suppressed” by ordinary law. Northern opinion, divided only weeks earlier, rallied behind the flag, and volunteers rushed to enlist.

In the Upper South the effect was the reverse. Refusing to supply troops to fight fellow Southerners, Virginia’s convention voted for secession on 17 April, followed by Arkansas, Tennessee and North Carolina by early June. The Confederacy gained its most populous and industrial state, and its capital moved to Richmond. The border slave states of Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland and Delaware stayed in the Union, though divided.

The flag returns

Fort Sumter remained a symbol for both sides. Union forces failed to retake it despite heavy bombardments from 1863, and Confederates held its ruins until Charleston was evacuated in February 1865. On 14 April 1865, exactly four years after the surrender and days after the surrender at Appomattox, Robert Anderson raised the same flag over the fort again. That night Lincoln was shot at Ford’s Theatre.

The fort is now preserved by the National Park Service as part of Fort Sumter and Fort Moultrie National Historical Park. Its battered walls, much lower than in 1861, still show the scars of the later Union bombardments.

Timeline

• 1860, 20 December: South Carolina secedes from the Union.
• 1860, 26 December: Anderson moves his garrison from Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter.
• 1861, 9 January: The Star of the West is fired on and turns back.
• 1861, 4 March: Abraham Lincoln is inaugurated.
• 1861, 6 April: Lincoln notifies South Carolina of a resupply mission.
• 1861, 11 April: Beauregard’s aides demand Sumter’s surrender; Anderson refuses.
• 1861, 12 April, about 4:30 a.m.: The bombardment begins.
• 1861, 13 April: Anderson agrees to evacuate the burning fort.
• 1861, 14 April: The garrison leaves after a salute in which two soldiers are fatally injured.
• 1861, 15 April: Lincoln calls for 75,000 volunteers.

Why it matters

Fort Sumter turned secession into war. By firing first, the Confederacy unified Northern opinion behind the Union, while Lincoln’s call for troops drove four more states out of the Union. A bloodless bombardment became the opening act of the deadliest war in American history.