Handbook 127
Fort Sumter
Anvil of War
Fort Sumter National Monument
South Carolina
Produced by the
Division of Publications
National Park Service
U.S. Department of the Interior
Washington, D.C. 1984
_About This book_
Early on the morning of April 12, 1861, a mortar shell fired from Fort
Johnson in Charleston Harbor burst almost directly over Fort Sumter,
inaugurating the tragic American Civil War. Two years later, Fort
Sumter, now in Confederate hands, became the focus of a gallant defense
in which determined Confederate soldiers kept Federal land and naval
forces at bay for 587 days. The “first shot” of 1861 and the Confederate
defense of 1863-65 are the subjects of the following pages. The
narrative is based on an earlier work by Frank Barnes, onetime historian
at Fort Sumter National Monument.
National Park handbooks, compact introductions to the natural and
historical places administered by the National Park Service, are
designed to promote public understanding and enjoyment of the parks.
Each handbook is intended to be informative reading and a useful guide
to park features. More than 100 titles are in print. They are sold at
parks and can be purchased by mail from the Superintendent of Documents,
U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 20402.
_Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data_:
Fort Sumter: anvil of war
Bibliography: p.
Supt. of Docs. no.: I 29.9/5:127
1. Fort Sumter (Charleston, S.C.)—History.
2. Charleston, (S.C.)—History—Civil War, 1861-1865.
3. Charleston, (S.C.)—Fortifications, military installations, etc.
4. Fort Sumter National Monument Charleston, (S.C.)
I. United States. National Park Service. Division of Publications.
F279.C48F684 1984 975.7’915 84-600248
ISBN 0-912627-24-7
Part 1 The Fort on the Shoal 4
Part 2 The Civil War Years 14
Fort Sumter and the Coming of War, 1861 17
The Struggle for Charleston, 1863-65 33
Part 3 The Fort Today 52
From Wartime Ruin to National Monument 54
What to See at Fort Sumter 55
_Sally Port_ _55_
_Left-Flank Casemates_ _55_
_Left Face_ _58_
_Right Face_ _58_
_Right Gorge Angle_ _59_
_Officers’ Quarters_ _59_
_Enlisted Men’s Barracks_ _59_
_Garrison Monument_ _59_
_Mountain Howitzer_ _59_
Other Points of Interest 60
_Fort Moultrie_ _60_
_James Island_ _62_
_Castle Pinckney_ _62_
_The Battery_ _62_
For Further Reading 63
Part 1 The Fort on the Shoal
[Illustration: _Fort Sumter on the eve of the Civil War as painted
by Seth Eastman. For Eastman’s companion view of Sumter at the close
of the war, see pages 50-51._]
[Illustration: _Kentucky-born Maj. Robert Anderson had never seen
Fort Sumter before November 1860, when he was sent to command the
Federal forts in Charleston Harbor as the secession crisis mounted.
His honorable defense of Fort Sumter in April 1861 made him a
national celebrity and linked his name more closely to the place
than anyone else’s, including those who planned and spent so many
years building it. The painting shows Anderson inside Fort Moultrie,
where he was headquartered upon his arrival in Charleston. Fort
Sumter lies in the distance._]
The Fort on the Shoal
“... the character of the times particularly inculcates the lesson
that, whether to prevent or repel danger, we ought not to be
unprepared for it. This consideration will sufficiently recommend to
Congress a liberal provision for the immediate extension and gradual
completion of the works of defense, both fixed and floating, on our
maritime frontier....”
—President James Madison to Congress,
December 15, 1815.
Anyone visiting Fort Sumter today will find it difficult to believe that
it could ever have ranked among the “most spectacular harbor defense
structures to come out of any era of military architecture.” Wrecked by
the Civil War, its walls reduced to half their original height, the
present fort only slightly resembles the huge fortification that
dominated the entrance to Charleston Harbor in the middle years of the
19th century.
Fort Sumter was one of a series of coastal fortifications built by the
United States after the War of 1812—a war that had shown the gross
inadequacy of American coastal defenses. The fort belonged to what has
come to be known as the Third American System of coastal defense,
embodying “structural durability, a high concentration of armament, and
enormous overall firepower.” This system emerged after Congress set up a
military Board of Engineers for Seacoast Fortifications in answer to
President Madison’s plea.
Under the unofficial direction of Brig. Gen. Simon Bernard, onetime
military engineer to the emperor Napoleon I, the Board began surveying
the entire coastline of the United States in 1817. The South Atlantic
coast, “especially regarded as less important,” was not surveyed until
1821. One fortification report, covering the Gulf coast and the Atlantic
coast between Cape Hatteras and the St. Croix River, had been submitted
to Congress earlier that year, but it was not until the revised form of
the report appeared in 1826 that much thought was given to permanently
occupying the shoal in Charleston Harbor opposite Fort Moultrie. If the
location were feasible, the Board reported, “the fortification of the
harbor may be considered as an easy and simple problem.” With the guns
of the projected fort crossing fire with those of Fort Moultrie, the
city of Charleston would be most effectively protected against attack.
Fort Sumter on the Eve of War
When Federal troops occupied Fort Sumter in late December 1860, they
found the place “filled with building materials, guns, carriages,
shot, shell, derricks, timbers, blocks and tackle, and coils of rope
in great confusion.” The soldiers spent many weeks clearing away
debris, moving and mounting guns, distributing shot, and bricking up
embrasures against a threatened Confederate attack. By April 1861 the
fort looked much as it does below.
The principal parts of the 1861 fort are identified in the following
list. Each is keyed by number to the illustration. The cutaway section
of the illustration shows the arched first- and second-tier casemates
behind the brick exterior. The second-tier casemates were unfinished
and no cannon were mounted there.
[Illustration: Fort Sumter, Aerial view]
1/Left Face
2/Left Flank, facing Charleston and Fort Johnson.
3/Right Face, fronting Fort Moultrie across the main ship channel.
4/Right Flank, facing the Atlantic Ocean.
5/Gorge Wall, facing Confederate batteries on Morris Island.
6/Left Gorge Angle
7/Right Gorge Angle, where Capt. Abner Doubleday commanded a Federal
gun crew in one of the lower casemates.
8/Officers’ Quarters, consisting of several three-story apartments for
officers and their families. Ordnance storerooms and a
hospital were also located here.
9/Enlisted Men’s Barracks, each designed to accommodate two companies.
10/Stair Tower, providing access to the barbette tier.
11/Hot Shot Furnace
12/Second Tier Embrasures
13/Fort Lantern
14/Bins containing oyster shells probably used in the fort’s
construction.
15/Sand and Brick-bat Traverses, erected by Federal engineers as
protection against Confederate cannon fire.
16/Sandbag Traverse, built to protect Federal gunners against
enfilading fire from Fort Moultrie.
17/Machicoulis Gallery, a wooden outcropping atop the parapet in which
soldiers could stand to fire into or drop grenades onto an
attacking force.
18/Sally Port
19/Granite Wharf
Plans for Fort Sumter were drawn up in 1827 and adopted on December 5,
1828. In the course of that winter Lt. Henry Brewerton, Corps of
Engineers, assumed charge of the project and commenced active
operations. But progress was slow, and as late as 1834 the new fort was
no more than a hollow pentagonal rock “mole” two feet above low water
and open at one side to permit supply ships to pass to the interior.
Meanwhile, the fort had been named Sumter in honor of Thomas Sumter,
brigadier general commanding South Carolina militia during the
Revolution.
Operations were suspended late in the autumn of 1834 when ownership of
the site came into question. The previous May, one William Laval, a
resident of Charleston, had secured from the State a rather vague grant
to 870 acres of “land” in Charleston Harbor. In November, acting under
this grant, Laval notified the representative of the U.S. Engineers at
Fort Johnson of his claim to the site of Fort Sumter. In the meantime,
the South Carolina Legislature had become curious about the operations
in Charleston Harbor and began to question “whether the creation of an
Island on a shoal in the Channel, may not injuriously affect the
navigation and commerce of the Harbor.” The following month, the
Committee on Federal Relations reported that it could not “ascertain by
what authority the Government had assumed to erect the works alluded
to.” Acting apparently under the impression that a formal deed of
cession to “land” ordinarily covered with water had not been necessary,
the Federal Government had commenced operations at the mouth of
Charleston Harbor without seeking or receiving State approval to do so.
Laval’s claim was invalidated by the State’s attorney general in 1837,
but the harbor issue remained unresolved. It was November 1841 before
the Federal Government received clear title to the 125 acres of harbor
“land,” although construction of Fort Sumter had resumed the previous
January under the skillful guidance of Capt. A. H. Bowman, who pushed
the work forward.
Bowman changed the original plans in several respects, the most
important involving the composition of the foundation. Instead of a
“grillage of continuous square timbers” upon the rock mass, he proposed
laying several courses of granite blocks because he feared worms would
completely destroy the wood; and palmetto, which might have resisted
such attacks, did not have the compactness of fiber or the necessary
strength to support the weight of the superstructure.
Work was difficult. The granite foundation had to be laid between
periods of high and low tide, and there were times when the water level
permitted no work to be done at all. The excessive heat of the
Charleston summers was a recurrent problem; so was yellow fever. Much of
the building material had to be brought in from the North. The magnitude
of the task is indicated by the quantities involved: about 10,000 tons
of granite (some of it from as far away as the Penobscot River region of
Maine) and well over 60,000 tons of other rock. Bricks, shells, and sand
could be obtained locally, but even here there were problems. Local
brickyard capacities were small and millions of bricks were required.
Similarly, hundreds of thousands of bushels of shells were needed—for
concrete, for the foundation of the first-tier casemate floors, and for
use in the parade fill next to the enrockment. Even the actual delivery
of supplies, however local in origin, was a problem, for then, as now,
the fort was a difficult spot at which to land.
By 1860 Fort Sumter outwardly possessed a commanding and formidable
appearance. Its five-foot-thick pentagonal-shaped brick masonry walls
towered nearly 50 feet above low water and enclosed a parade ground of
roughly one acre. Along four of the walls extended two tiers of arched
gunrooms. Officers’ quarters lined the fifth side—the 316.7-foot gorge.
(This wall was to be armed only along the parapet.) Three-story brick
barracks for the enlisted garrison paralleled the gunrooms on each
flank. The sally port at the center of the gorge opened on a 171-foot
wharf and a 25½-foot-wide stone esplanade that extended the length of
that wall.
[Illustration: _Brig. Gen. Pierre G. T. Beauregard, one of the
South’s leading military engineers, commanded the Confederate forces
at Charleston in April 1861 and again from August 1862 to May 1864.
Ironically, Beauregard’s favorite teacher at West Point had been
artillery instructor Robert Anderson, whose refusal to surrender
Fort Sumter to his former pupil led to the opening shots of the
Civil War._]
Outward appearances, however, were deceiving. Unruffled decades of peace
had induced glacial slowness and indifference in Washington. The fort
was far from completed and, according to U.S. Army Surgeon Samuel W.
Crawford who came to know the place well, “in no condition for defense.”
Eight-foot-square openings yawned in place of gun embrasures on the
second tier. Of the 135 guns planned for the gunrooms and the open
terre-plein above, only 15 had been mounted. Most of these were 32
pounders; none was heavier. The barracks were unfinished and, where
tenable, occupied by workmen. The officers’ quarters were also
unfinished, and a large number of wooden structures “of the most
temporary character” occupied the parade. These “served as storehouses
for the tools and material of the workmen, while all over the parade lay
sand and rough masonry, and sixty-six guns with their carriages and
5,600 shot and shell.”
By December 1860 time as well as money had run out, and the fort was
about to take on a political significance far beyond the military
function it was originally intended to serve. The long-smoldering
sectional dispute between North and South had become like a powder keg.
And Fort Sumter was the fuse that would ignite it.