surrender, on the morning of the 7th, General Beauregard sent word that
the admiral could have it when he could “take it and hold it.” On
September 4 the garrison had been relieved with fresh troops—320 strong.
Maj. Stephen Elliott succeeded to the command.
Admiral Dahlgren “immediately designed to put into operation a plan to
capture Fort Sumter.” As a preliminary, the monitor _Weehawken_ was
ordered to pass in around Cummings Point “to cut off all communication
by that direction.” Later in the day, the _New Ironsides_ and the
remaining ironclads were to move up “to feel, and if possible, pass” the
obstructions believed to be in the channel north of Sumter. But the
Weehawken grounded, and the monitors caught such a severe fire from Fort
Moultrie and the other Confederate batteries on Sullivan’s Island, that
Admiral Dahlgren “deemed it best to give [his] entire attention to the
_Weehawken_” and withdraw. Whatever his original plan, Admiral Dahlgren
now determined upon a small-boat assault. The task seemed simple; there
was “nothing but a corporal’s guard in the fort ... all we have to do is
go and take possession.”
[Illustration: CONFEDERATE DEFENSES OF CHARLESTON HARBOR, 1863-1865]
[Illustration: “The Flag of Sumter, October 20, 1863” painted by Conrad
Wise Chapman, Confederate artist. Courtesy Confederate Museum,
Richmond.]
_The Small-boat Assault_
On the night of September 8-9, 400 sailors and marines made the attempt.
A tug towed the small boats within 800 yards of the fort, then, too
awkwardly, cast them loose. In the darkness and confusion, plans went
awry. Without the benefit of a diversionary assault, two columns
advanced simultaneously upon the right flank of the fort.
The Confederate garrison coolly held fire till the leading boats were in
the act of landing, then let loose with a galling fire of musketry, hand
grenades, “fire balls,” grape and canister, brickbats, and masonry
fragments. At a signal from the fort, the Confederate gunboat _Chicora_
steamed out from the harbor and opened fire; Fort Moultrie “fired like a
devil.”
From the outer boats, the marines replied rapidly for a few minutes.
Some of the sailors ashore fired a few times from their revolvers, but
for the most part sought refuge in the embrasures or breaches of the
wall. It was all over in 20 minutes. Most of the boats did not even
touch shore. The Federal loss was 124 killed, wounded, and captured; 5
boats were taken. A similar expedition from Gillmore’s command was
detained by low tide in a creek west of Morris Island. Service rivalry
had prevented active cooperation that might have meant victory.
For 19 days following the small-boat assault, Fort Sumter was free of
attack; then, after a 6-day bombardment of “minor” proportions, for 23
days more. Damages sustained by the monitors in the Morris Island
operation, as much as fear of channel obstructions (a menace afterwards
proved greatly exaggerated) and Fort Moultrie’s evidently increased
firepower, made Admiral Dahlgren reluctant to make another move at this
time. General Gillmore, engaged now in rebuilding and rearming the
captured Confederate batteries on Cummings Point, thought he had
accomplished his part of the operation. In his opinion, Fort Sumter was
effectively reduced; its seizure and occupation would be a costly and
unnecessary operation. Further offensive operations by his force had
never been contemplated; and the reenforcements needed for such
operations were not to be had. Indeed, with the “turn of the tide” at
Vicksburg and Gettysburg, Charleston had suddenly become much less
important.
Meanwhile, Fort Sumter’s garrison was not idle. It was at this time that
the great “central bombproof,” with quarters for 100 men, was built out
from the gorge interior and, in the remaining casemates of the right
face, a new 3-gun battery mounted.
[Illustration: “Fort Sumter from Fort Moultrie, November 10, 1863”
painted by Conrad Wise Chapman. Courtesy Confederate Museum, Richmond.]
_The Second Great Bombardment_
On October 26, “on the strength of certain reports ... that the enemy
have recently been at work remounting some guns,” Gillmore resumed the
bombardment; at least Fort Sumter could be “kept down” while the Navy
prepared. For the next 12 days, the concentration of fire was comparable
to the great bombardment of the preceding August. But now, firing from
the new batteries on Cummings Point, with range shortened to less than a
mile, the effect was far greater. For the first time, 16 heavy mortars
were in use—2 of them 8½-ton pieces (13-inch bore) throwing 200-pound
projectiles. Their sharp, plunging fire was added to that of 12 Parrott
rifles—the types already used so effectively against the fort—and 1
powerful Columbiad. In addition, 2 monitors, with guns “equal to a
dozen” Parrotts, crossed fire with Gillmore’s artillery.
Sumter’s “sea front” (right flank), upright and relatively unscathed
till then, was breached now for nearly half its length. The ramparts and
arches of its upper casemates were cut down and the interior barracks
demolished. The accumulated debris made ascent easy inside and out.
Through the breach, the Federal guns took the channel fronts “in
reverse.” For the first time, these were exposed to direct fire; soon
they were “cut and jagged.” Still, the gorge ruin remained much the
same; to Admiral Dahlgren, that “heap of rubbish” looked “invincible.”
Night and day, Gillmore’s batteries maintained a “slow fire” against
Fort Sumter throughout November and into December. On occasion the
monitors assisted. Sumter could return merely “harmless musketry”; only
telescopic rifle sights made even that much possible. But, the “rebels”
seemed “snug in the ruins”; and if Sumter was without guns, Confederate
batteries on James and Sullivan’s Islands kept up an irritating
counterfire.
[Illustration: Capt. John C. Mitchel. From Johnson, The Defense of
Charleston Harbor.]
[Illustration: Capt. Thomas A. Huguenin. From Johnson, The Defense of
Charleston Harbor.]
On November 6, the Confederate engineer at Fort Sumter reported the
bombproofs (quarters) unhurt. Although the height of the mass of the
fort was “diminishing visibly on the sides away from the city,” still,
“when it gets down to the lower casemates [he wrote] it will have become
so thick from accumulated debris as to resist further battering.” Two
weeks later, Major Johnson found the fort stronger than ever, and
casualties were “either among those carelessly exposing themselves,
outside the bombproof, or obliged to do so when at work.” Indeed,
casualties had been surprisingly low—only 2 men had been killed in the
bombardment of August and only 22 more since the start of the second
great bombardment; 118 had been wounded. Major Johnson did not
“apprehend being run out by the big guns”; his chief anxiety was over
“exposure to assault from barges at night.”
In mid-November such an attack seemed to be forthcoming. During the
early hours of the 18th, the defenders of the fort had “four distinct
alarms” as small boats approached within hailing distance; “all hands
out each time and expecting a fight.” On the following night, a force
estimated at 250 men approached within 300 yards of the fort, only to be
driven off by the muskets of the aroused garrison.
But General Gillmore had merely ordered a “reconnaissance ... of the
nature of a simulated attack, with a view to compel the garrison to show
its strength.” Nor would he make another attempt. The next move remained
up to the Navy.
Admiral Dahlgren continued to make no move. In any event, he could not
advance until the repairs on the monitors were finished. As late as
January 1864 these still were not complete. Meanwhile, in the face of
reports of greatly strengthened harbor fortifications other than Fort
Sumter, and increasingly concerned over the nature of the harbor
obstructions, he was reluctant now to move forward without additional
monitors. Defeat was always possible, and defeat for the Union’s “only
ironclad squadron” might have serious consequences, not only for the
blockade and Gillmore’s command on Morris Island, but for future
operations elsewhere along the coast. In the meantime, “substantial”
advantages had already been gained; the blockade at Charleston was
tighter with Morris Island in Federal hands. To all this, the Navy
Department agreed. Elsewhere, however, the war gathered momentum. In
November, the North won decisively at Chattanooga.
The additional monitors, always promised, never seemed to arrive. On
December 5, General Gillmore stopped the bombardment of Fort Sumter
begun 41 days earlier. There seemed no great advantage in continuing,
and it required considerable ammunition.
_Stalemate—Spring of 1864_
The general had made his last sustained effort against the fort. On only
four other days in December did he fire any rounds at all. During the 4
months he remained in command the firing was intermittent, never more
than “minor” in character. Meanwhile, forthcoming operations in Virginia
required all the troops available. On May 1, 1864, General Gillmore
departed for Fort Monroe with 18,000 picked men and quantities of
valuable matériel.
General Grant’s operations required the services of the additional
monitors awaited by Admiral Dahlgren. With the monitor force reduced to
six by the foundering of the _Weehawken_ in December, further offensive
operations against Charleston seemed completely out of the question. In
June, the ironclad frigate _New Ironsides_ was withdrawn to the north.
_Fort Sumter Strengthened_
In the preceding December, Fort Sumter had been an “almost chaotic
ruin.” At night, below the “rugged outline of the ramparts,” wrote one
of the garrison, all was—
“dark with piles of disordered material; a chance shower of sparks
blows out from smouldering fire and lights up some great rough blocks
of brick work and the pools of stagnant water into which they have
been violently thrown some days before. Or lanterns move about in
unseen hands, some to light a way for long trains of men toiling with
heavy timbers and bags of sand over the roughest footing and up steep
and uncertain, tumbling slopes; some to direct the heaping of material
over old damaged hiding places repaired for the twentieth time since
the firing began, or to build up newer and more lasting shelters for
the garrison....”
With the fort practically left alone during the months immediately
following, the garrison gradually restored order from chaos. The parade
ground, excavated well below high-water level to provide sand-filling,
was cleared, drained, and partially rebuilt. Trim ranks of gabions
(wicker baskets filled with sand) bolstered the sloping debris of the
walls on the interior. The three-gun battery in the lower right face was
lined with logs and planks, 10 feet deep, and revetted more thoroughly
in the rear. In casemates of the left flank another three-gun battery
was created. Through the disordered debris of the left and right faces,
the garrison tunneled a 275-foot timbered gallery connecting the two
batteries and fort headquarters in the left flank. In from the rubble of
the “sea front,” the garrison built a loopholed timber blockhouse to
cover the parade ground in the event of further assault. In May, Capt.
John C. Mitchel, son of the Irish patriot, relieved Lt. Col. Stephen
Elliott in command.
_The Third Great Bombardment_
The onset of summer, 1864, brought one more attempt to take Fort Sumter;
likewise another officer of the original Fort Sumter garrison came into
the operation. Maj. Gen. J. G. Foster, engineer of the fort in April
1861, succeeding to Gillmore’s command on May 26, was convinced that
“with proper arrangements” the fort could easily be taken “at any time.”
The “proper arrangements” included special light-draft steamers and
1,000-man “assaulting arks” equipped with elevated towers for
sharpshooters and 51-foot scaling ladders. Though initial War Department
reaction was cool, Foster went ahead with a preliminary operation to
complete the demolition of the fort. “Yankee ingenuity” might succeed
where routine operations had failed or been judged too costly.
[Illustration: “Fort Sumter: Interior Sunrise, December 9, 1864” painted
by Conrad Wise Chapman. Courtesy Confederate Museum, Richmond.]
On July 7, 1864, Foster’s batteries opened a sustained bombardment
against the ruin of Fort Sumter. During the remainder of that month, an
average of 350 rounds daily was hurled at the beleagured fort. In some
respects, this was the heaviest bombardment Fort Sumter had yet
received. Although the gorge ruin was wasted away at one point to within
20 feet of the water, and the shattered “sea front” was still further
reduced, the right face remained erect, its three-gun battery intact,
likewise most of the left flank. To Admiral Dahlgren, as late as July
21, the work seemed “nearly impregnable.” Debris added to debris,
feverish work day and night, and thousands of bags of sand brought from
the city by night actually made the fort stronger than ever. If a
casemate were breached, it was speedily filled; if the slopes of the
ruin invited assault, a bristling array of wooden pikes and barbed-wire
entanglements were provided; and there were always the muskets of the
300-man garrison.
The fire slackened in August; Foster’s supply of ammunition was
dwindling. A scheme for “shaking down” the fort walls by floating down
large “powder rafts” failed miserably. Mid-August brought final War
Department refusal to supply light-draft steamers; the end of August,
sharp disapproval for Foster’s “assaulting arks.” Meanwhile, Admiral
Dahlgren had been unwilling to cooperate in an alternate plan of
assault.
With his requisitions for more ammunition unfilled, General Foster was
now called upon to ship north most of his remaining ammunition and four
more regiments of troops to be used in Grant’s operations against
Richmond. Foster was ordered to remain strictly on the defensive.
On September 4, the bombardment begun on July 7 came to an end. In the
61 days, another 14,666 rounds had been hurled against the fort. Sixteen
of the garrison had been killed, 65 wounded. On July 20, Captain Mitchel
fell mortally wounded. Capt. Thomas A. Huguenin succeeded him that
night.
_Sherman’s March Forces Sumter’s Evacuation_
The last great bombardment of Fort Sumter had taken place. The firing
was no more than desultory after September 1864; less than a hundred
rounds were hurled at the fort in the months of December and January;
none at all in February. During the autumn months it was all Foster’s
batteries could do to make a “decent defense” of Morris Island, let
alone carry on any offensive operations. Wrote one of the commanders in
mid-September:
“The shelling from the enemy’s mortars was severe ... and having but
little mortar powder, we were unable to reply effectually.... I regret
that our ordnance supplies are so scanty.... No powder for the
mortars; no suitable fuses for the fire on Charleston; no shells for
the 30-pounder Parrotts, a most useful gun for silencing the enemy’s
fire; no material for making cartridge bags, or grease for lubricating
the projectiles.... More ammunition for the 300-pounder, the most
useful guns in these works, is also very much needed....”
And Sumter itself was more than irritating:
“Within the last 2 days the work ... has been greatly interfered with
by a corps of sharpshooters ... stationed on Fort Sumter. The bullets
came in very thick when I was at the front this morning....”
In February 1865, the long stalemate came to an end. In that month,
General Sherman commenced his march north from Savannah through the
interior of South Carolina, slicing between the remnants of Hood’s army
on the west and the small Confederate force remaining along the coast.
On the 17th, with Sherman in Columbia, Fort Sumter and the other
Confederate fortifications in Charleston harbor were quietly evacuated.
At 9 o’clock on the morning of the 18th, the United States flag was once
more raised over Fort Sumter. The fortunes of war had accomplished what
3,500 tons of metal, a fleet of ironclads, and thousands of men had
failed to do.
_Major Anderson Returns_
On April 14, 1865, Robert Anderson, now a retired brigadier general,
returned to Fort Sumter to raise again the flag he had pulled down 4
years before. The guns of the harbor thundered in salute. In an address
before the throng of spectators brought down from New York, Henry Ward
Beecher said:
[Illustration: Raising the original flag at Fort Sumter, April 14, 1865.
Contemporary artist’s sketch from French and Cary, The Trip of the
Steamer Oceanus to Fort Sumter.]
“We raise our fathers’ banner, that it may bring back better blessings
than those of old, that it may cast out the devil of discord; that it
may restore lawful government and a prosperity purer and more enduring
than that which it protected before; that it may win parted friends
from their alienation; that it may inspire hope and inaugurate
universal liberty; ... that it may heal all jealousies, unite all
policies, inspire a new national life, compact our strength, purify
our principles, ennoble our national ambitions, and make this people
great and strong ... for the peace of the world....”
That night, with tragic coincidence, an assassin’s bullet felled Abraham
Lincoln in Washington.
[Illustration: Horizontal section, Fort Sumter, February 1865. The Gorge
is at the base of the plan. Courtesy National Archives.]
_Fort Sumter After 1865_
In the 1870’s the rubble and ruin of war were cleared from the interior
of Fort Sumter, and the work of reconstruction began. The outer walls of
the gorge and right flank, largely destroyed by the bombardments, were
partially rebuilt. The other walls of the fort, left jagged and torn 30
to 40 feet above water, were leveled to approximately half their
original height. Through the left flank a new sally port was
constructed. Within the reconstructed walls of the fort, the earth and
concrete works for a 10-gun battery _en barbette_ (guns fired from an
open parapet) began to take shape.
[Illustration: Interior of the Gorge as seen from atop the Left Flank,
February 1865. The central bombproof is at the left.]
Operations were well advanced, when, in June 1876, shortage of funds
forced complete suspension of activity. Only three permanent barbette
platforms had been constructed by that time. Of necessity, seven
temporary (wooden) platforms remained; on these, four “200 pounder”
Parrott rifles and two 15-inch Rodman smoothbores had been mounted. In a
modification of the original plan, 11 lower-tier gunrooms of the
original fort along the right face and about the salient had been
recovered and armed with “100 pounder” Parrotts. In a gradually
deteriorating state, these 17 guns constituted Fort Sumter’s armament
for the next 23 years.
[Illustration: Exterior, Fort Sumter, February 1865. The Gorge is at the
right; the Left Flank is at the left.]
From 1876 to 1898, Fort Sumter stood largely neglected, important mainly
as a lighthouse station. Ungarrisoned, most of that time it was in the
charge of a “fortkeeper” or an ordnance sergeant. Without proper funds
for maintenance, Fort Sumter, even then visited by thousands each year,
fell into a state of dilapidation. By 1887 the wooden platforms of the
barbette guns had rotted away so that “not one gun could be safely
fired”; the neat earth slopes had eroded into “irregular mounds”; and
quantities of sand had drifted into the parade ground. The casemate guns
rusted so that they could not be traversed; salt water dashed freely
through the open embrasures, the shutters of which were no longer in
working order.
The Spanish-American War, 1898, prompted the construction in 1899 of a
battery of two long-range rifled cannon at Fort Sumter. The massive
concrete emplacement for this battery (named for Isaac Huger, South
Carolinian, general in the American Revolution) dominates the central
portion of Fort Sumter today. The guns, long since outmoded, were
removed about 1941. During World War II, Fort Sumter was armed with
90-mm. antiaircraft guns manned by a garrison of Coast Artillery.
_Guide to the Area_
The following guide should be used with the map on pages 22 and 23.
Numbers on the map correspond to the numbers in the text below.
[Illustration: One of the 12-inch guns of Battery Huger, as mounted in
1901.]
1. LEFT-FLANK EXTERIOR. Entrance to Fort Sumter is by way of a modern
sally port built through the center of the fort’s left flank. This sally
port, erected after the Civil War, replaced a gun embrasure. The two
13-inch mortars mounted outside this entry serve as the visitor’s
introduction to the ordnance now located at Fort Sumter. In 1863-65
Federal troops on Morris Island used this type of mortar against the
fort. A marker on the left flank near the sally port honors the
Confederate defenders of Fort Sumter.
2. LEFT-FLANK CASEMATES. The casemates (gunrooms) of the lower tier on
the left flank were surmounted by a second tier identical in appearance.
Above the second-tier casemates, guns were mounted _en barbette_ on an
open terreplein. This arrangement was also used on the fort’s right
flank and on its right and left faces. Each casemate contained one gun,
which could be moved on a track for crossfiring through the embrasure.
Fort Sumter was designed for an armament of 135 guns and a garrison of
650 men. There are now two guns mounted on the casemate carriages in the
left flank. The one on the left of the sally port is a rifled and banded
“42-pounder”; the one on the right is a 42-pound smoothbore. Shielded
(by the mass of the gorge) from Federal guns on Morris Island, 1863-65,
the left flank casemates were used as a Confederate headquarters and
hospital. The lower half of the outer wall retained its full height
until the end of the siege, but was leveled to approximately half its
original height during the 1870’s.
3. ENLISTED MEN’S BARRACKS. Inside and parallel to the left flank are
the ruins of an enlisted men’s barracks. This building, three stories
high, rose slightly above the fort walls. The first floor contained the
kitchen and mess facilities, with sleeping quarters on the two upper
floors. Another barracks for enlisted men, identical to this one, was
located on the right flank.
4. OFFICERS’ QUARTERS. Along the gorge (or back wall) was another
3-story brick building, the officers’ quarters. In addition to
furnishing lodging to the officers of Fort Sumter, this building also
housed the administrative offices, storerooms, powder magazines, and
jail. Most of the wooden parts of the building burned during the initial
Confederate bombardment. While the fort was in Confederate hands, many
of the rooms were filled with sand and bales of cotton to strengthen the
gorge.
5. GARRISON MONUMENT. The U.S. Government erected this monument in 1932
“... in memory of the garrison defending Fort Sumter during the
bombardment April 12-14, 1861.” The roster of the original garrison is
listed on the tablet.
6. PARADE. In 1899, when Battery Huger was built in the center of the
ruins of Fort Sumter, the remainder of the fort was filled with sand to
strengthen it against guns of that period. In 1959 the National Park
Service completed excavations that uncovered the entire left side of
Fort Sumter down to the level of the original parade. Most of the fill
on the right side is still in place.