Ft. Sumter

We arrived at the Fort and began to look around.

The main draw are the various cannons around the fort, especially as all the interior exhibits are closed.

 

 

While there were plenty of cannon on the inside, firing out.  There were several outside the fort shelling it with abandon.

During the Siege of Ft. Sumter (1863-1865) when the Union was trying to retake the fort, they shelled it extensively. Many shells passed into the fort and hit the interior of the walls rather than the exterior. Some of those shells remain within the walls of the fort.

Quite a few of these shells are still visible inside the walls where they impacted and failed to explode.

When the archeologists were excavating an area, they found a bunch of cannons still in their firing positions at the walls that had been purposely buried in place as obsolete.

Rather cool.  The excavation is ongoing and more cannons and artifacts will likely be found.  Entry to the area was prohibited.

That sign was a red flag to a Murphy.

That was not adequately Murphy-proofed.

We then went to the highest point in the fort to take in the view.

Then we saw a gun mount position that had been installed post-civil war to protect Charleston from attack from the sea.

The ferry was then set to depart, and we were all required to leave with it, so we boarded and left Fort Sumter.  It's a very historic location yet a rather small fort that can be thoroughly explored in less than two hours, especially now that the museum and other interior spaces are closed.

Onward to Fort Sumter!

The day after our tour of Patriot's Point, Murphy and I headed over to Fort Sumter.

After all, if one is in Charleston, one should take the time to see the location of the first clash of the Civil War.

To get to Ft. Sumter you either do an endurance swim which is frowned upon, or take a Ferry.  I'd highly recommend the ferry.

Leaving the harbor you get some nice shots form the water side of Patriot's Point:

 

USS Laffey

 

USS Clamagore

 And of Course the USS Yorktown:

It was nice of that boat to give the Yorktown and Clamagore a sense of scale.

It's a working harbor so there's many a civilian ship doing work on the water.

The Ocean Jazz, a US-Flagged Heavy Load Carrier was in port.

As we left the harbor, a tug was coming in.

On the way to Sumter you pass by other fortifications.  This one, I believe, is Ft. Moultrie:

Then we reached Ft. Sumter:

150 Years Ago Today, The Civil War Started With A Bang

150 Years ago today, at 4:30 a.m. April 12, 1861, the artillerymen commanded by Confederate Brigadier General Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard opened fire on Ft. Sumter in Charleston Harbor.

The firing on Ft. Sumter was the opening battle of the American Civil War.

Beauregard's artillery instructor at West Point, Major Robert Anderson was commanding Ft. Sumter at the time and had refused Confederate demands that the Fort be surrendered.

The Fort surrendered the next day without a Union soldier being killed (one was later killed in the hundred gun salute negotiated as part of the surrender that was reduced to a 50 gun salute as a result). The Fort was returned to Union hands on February 22, 1865.

The Civil War would become America's most bitter conflict with over 618,000 killed and exceed all casualties in all of America's wars from the Revolutionary war through the Vietnam War. The battles in the war had casualty counts that rivaled American losses in the major battles of World War 1. Indeed, the Civil War in many ways foreshadowed the nature of combat in World War 1, and the bloodiest day ever in American military history was September 17, 1862 at the Battle of Antietam/Sharpsburg.

For an excellent overview of the US Civil War I'd recommend John Keegan's The American Civil War: A Military History It gives an excellent lesson in not just the military conflict but its cultural, social, political and economic background and effects and is quite well-written. After reading Keegan, there are a multitude of other excellent authors to delve into from sweeping overviews of the war to microcosmic analysis of individual battles down to the experience of a private on the battlefield itself.

The US Civil War is one of the most written about topics in American history.

There has been a book published about the Civil War for every day since it ended and more will continue to be published on the topic, especially this year.