With the start of the Civil War, desperate refugees from slavery began to flood Union camps in earnest, but the government in Washington still had no consistent policy regarding fugitives. Often their fate was in the hands of the individual commanders.
Finally, on August 6, , the North declared fugitive slaves to be "contraband of war" if their labor had been used to aid the Confederacy. Contrabands were considered free and were protected by the Union army. As the reality of war sunk in, slaveholders in the South hoped that their slaves would remain loyal to them. Some did, and the slave uprising that Mary Chestnut feared never came.
But the exodus of enslaved people who crossed Union lines and made their way to freedom steadily increased after guns were fired at Fort Sumter. By , approximately 10, former slaves flooded Washington. By the end of the Civil War, as many as 40, fugitives had made their way to the Union capital. The Academy was—and is—the premier school for American soldiers. Before the Civil War, the institution trained both northerners and southerners to be the elite fighting force of the nation.
When the nation divided over slavery and secession loomed, the bonds that linked the close-knit classes at West Point began to fray. Some southern cadets felt duty-bound to depart for the Confederate States of America, which was seeking officers for its newly formed military. Many of the cadets from the north, who had been indifferent to southern politics and secession, suddenly rallied to defend the Union after the attack on Fort Sumter.
Beauregard, a native of Louisiana, declared his secessionist leanings while still superintendent at West Point and quickly left to sign up with the Confederate army. Anderson, though a native of Kentucky and former slave owner, remained faithful to the Union and was assigned to command its forces in Charleston.
These West Point soldiers knew how to command. Their communications before and during the battle reflect the courtesy and professionalism of career officers. Regardless of any personal feelings he may have felt toward Anderson, Beauregard had his orders. He instructed his aide-de-camp to send the major this formal heads-up on April 12 at a.
Library of Congress. Close Video. Charleston Harbor, SC Apr 12 - 14, How it ended Confederate victory. But the Confederacy would tolerate no further delay. Anderson roused his men, informing them an attack was imminent. At a. A single shell from Fort Johnson on James Island rose high into the still-starry sky, curved downward and burst directly over Fort Sumter.
As geysers of brick and mortar spumed up where balls hit the ramparts, shouts of triumph rang from the rebel emplacements. To conserve powder cartridges, the garrison endured the bombardment without reply for two and a half hours. The Union volley sent vast flocks of water birds rocketing skyward from the surrounding marsh. At about 10 a. At Fort Moultrie, now occupied by the Confederates, federal shots hit bales of cotton that rebel gunners were using as bulwarks.
Humor was less on display in the aristocratic homes of Charleston, where the roar of artillery began to rattle even the most devout secessionists.
The sight of reinforcements so tantalizingly close was maddening to those on Sumter. The bombardment slackened during the rainy night but kept on at minute intervals, and began again in earnest at 4 a. At p. As fires crept toward the powder magazine, soldiers raced to remove hundreds of barrels of powder that threatened to blow the garrison into the cloudless sky.
The grandstanding Wigfall had no formal authority to negotiate, but he offered Anderson the same terms that Beauregard had offered a few days earlier: Anderson would be allowed to evacuate his command with dignity, arms in hand, and be given unimpeded transport to the North and permission to salute the Stars and Stripes. He had made his stand. He had virtually no powder cartridges left. His brave, hopelessly outgunned band of men had defended the national honor with their lives without respite for 34 hours.
The outcome was not in question. The agreement nearly collapsed when three Confederate officers showed up to request a surrender. Anderson was so furious at having capitulated to the freelancing Wigfall that he was about to run up the flag yet again. However, he was persuaded to wait until confirmation of the terms of surrender, which arrived soon afterward from Beauregard. When news of the surrender at last reached the besieging rebels, they vaulted onto the sand hills and cheered wildly; a horseman galloped at full speed along the beach at Morris Island, waving his cap and exulting at the tidings.
Fort Sumter lay in ruins. Flames smoldered amid the shot-pocked battlements, dismounted cannon and charred gun carriages. Astoundingly, despite an estimated 3, cannon shots fired at the fort, not a single soldier had been killed on either side. Beauregard had agreed to permit the defenders to salute the U. Tragically, however, one cannon fired prematurely and blew off the right arm of a gunner, Pvt. Daniel Hough, killing him almost instantly and fatally wounding another Union soldier.
The two men thus became the first fatalities of the Civil War. Physically and emotionally drained, and halfway starved, Anderson and his men gazed back toward the fort where they had made grim history.
In their future lay the slaughter pens of Bull Run, Shiloh, Antie-tam, Gettysburg, Chickamauga and hundreds more still unimaginable battlefields from Virginia to Missouri. The Civil War had begun. Fergus M. During the first two years of Confederate occupation of Fort Sumter, the war raged on other battlefields. Life at Fort Sumter was relatively good despite some dissention and a feud between senior officers that ended in two duels. However, on April 7, , the war came again to Fort Sumter with an attack by nine Union Navy ironclads, and life in the fort over the next two years changed dramatically.
The terreplein top level was a wreck, and the parade ground was pitted with shell craters. The enlisted barracks were gutted from fires still burning. The officer quarters were a shambles. However, the outer walls were not damaged significantly. Repairs and Improvements The soldiers, along with civilian and enslaved laborers, immediately got to work extinguishing fires and repairing damage.
Over the next weeks and months, work centered on restoring buildings, casemates, and magazines. Damage from shells was repaired. Burned out barracks were partially rebuilt but to a lower level, the magazines were strengthened, and the two hot shot furnaces restored. A submerged telegraphic cable or submarine cable was also completed between Sumter and Fort Moultrie. A bakery was supplied and was said to have used the two hot shot furnaces. A machine for converting salt water into fresh water by distilling the salt water in a boiler was provided to supplement the cisterns.
As a newly inaugurated president, Abraham Lincoln hoped that secessions would return to the Union of their own volition. Major Anderson was forced to surrender two days later. Shots were fire from all sides of the fort from both the banks of Sullivans Island and Morris Island. After the battle did massive damage much of the area ended up with new custom homes in Charleston.
It was then that he decided to open fire at Fort Sumter, thus marking the beginning of the American Civil War. The terms of surrender however allowed Major Anderson to perform a gun salute before evacuation.
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