This Federal major of artillery was summoned on April 11, 1861, to
surrender Fort Sumter and the property of the government whose uniform he
wore. At half-past four the following morning the boom of the first gun
from Fort Johnson in Charleston Harbor notified the breathless, waiting
world that war was on. The flag had been fired on, and hundreds of
thousands of lives were to be sacrificed ere the echoes of the great guns
died away at the end of four years into the sobs of a nation whose best
and bravest, North and South, had strewn the many battlefields. No wonder
that the attention of the civilized world was focussed on the man who
provoked the first blow in the greatest conflict the world has ever known.
He was the man who handled the situation at the breaking point. To him the
North looked to preserve the Federal property in Charleston Harbor, and
the honor of the National flag. The action of the South depended upon his
decision. He played the part of a true soldier, and two days after the
first shot was fired he led his little garrison of the First United States
Artillery out of Sumter with the honors of war.