Today, we continue our look back at the 150th Anniversary of the Civil War - as it happens chronologically. This week is the date of the actual start of the war, and a great item of importance to many South Carolinians: the taking of Fort Sumter.
A month earlier, the Federal Government was faced with the question of what to do with Fort Sumter. A small battery located in the heart of Charleston Harbor, surrounded on all sides by five other batteries, the thought of abandoning Sumter was on the table. However, the North decided they would not leave any post, even one as vulnerable as Fort Sumter. It was just a matter of time..
On April 11, 1861, South Carolina officially demanded that the US surrender Fort Sumter. Capt. Robert Anderson, commander of the fort, declined to leave. With the troops dug in, Anderson and his men waited as the deadline expired that midnight. They didn't have to wait long...
At 4:30 am on the 12th, cadets from The Citadel, led by Gen. PGT Beauregard, fired the first salvos into Sumter, and continued for the next 24 hours. While the battery looked like it was nearly flattened, there was not a single casualty on the attack - a bloodless first fight in what became our bloodiest war ever...
Finally, on the 13th, Anderson surrendered, leaving Fort Sumter in the hands of the Condfederacy.. The Civil War was on. Those states that waited on the sidelines had to choose. Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee and North Carolina all finally seceeded. Then, the race to gather troops, and to supply build and train armies began.. Not all of it was glamourous: citizens in Baltimore rioted in the streets, but most volunteered to take part in the Great War - which most thought would only last a few weeks. There would be plenty of time to fight.... The only thing not known yet was when and where the North would move to put down the insurgency. It would be much harder than they thought...
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