Fort Sumter (The American Civil War 1861) – Back in 1812 America was drawn into the war between Britain and France. After the war ended in 1815 the united states had learned that it had a desperate need to modernize and fortify the defenses on its vulnerable eastern coastline. Subsequently, the Americans started to build a large number of modern and strategically placed coastal sea forts. These were called the third system style forts. They had a very high five-sided fortification consisting of three tiers with walls by feet thick with batteries of large caliber muzzle-loading cannons.
One such seaport was fort Sumter built to guard Charleston harbor in South Carolina. It was to supplement the much older fort situated in the middle of the harbor fort Moultrie an American war of independence-era sea fort. Though fort Sumter was started in 1829 it was still not completed due to a lack of funds by the time South Carolina seceded from the union in 1860 and with the formation of the Confederate States of America in February 1861. The Union garrison at Fort Sumter suddenly found itself inside hostile territory. The union harbor commander had already realized the seriousness of the situation. So back on December 26, 1860, they abandoned the smaller fort of Moultrie redeploying its men across the harbor to Fort Sumter. As well as moving Moultrie smaller guns in an attempt to beef up the strength of sumpter’s garrison. The garrison now consisted of 85 soldiers including eight military musicians and over the next few months they would get around 60 artillery pieces up and running but didn’t have sufficient men to man all the guns.
Also, the majority of the guns were facing out to sea when in fact the real danger to the fort was the land-based confederate infantry units and artillery batteries. The infuriated confederates repeatedly demanded the surrender of the Fort Sumter garrison but they refused and things came to a head in April 1861. The situation for the fort had become critical when it was realized it would run out of food by the 15th of April. An earlier attempt to resupply the fort by sea back in January had failed having been driven off by gunfire by debts from the local military college of South Carolina.
In March Abraham Lincoln became the new union president and vowed to keep the fort resupplied thus heightening the tension between the two sides. On April 12, 1861, at 4:30 a.m. The union garrison having ignored an ultimatum to vacate the fort provoked the Confederates to start bombarding it and this heralded the start of the four-year-long American civil war. After 34 hours and an estimated 3,000 shots fired at Fort Sumter by the Confederate artillery the union garrison realizing the situation was hopelessly surrendered. Therefore ending the very first battle of the American civil war. No one was killed during the short-lived siege though ironically during the surrender ceremony on April 14th two union soldiers were killed when a spark caused a pile of cartridges to explode as a planned 100 gun salute was taking place. Following year the war intensified and eventually led to an estimated six hundred and twenty thousand Americans being killed before the war ended in 1865. Fort Sumpter remained in the confederates hands until almost the end of the war despite several attempts by the union army to retake it.
