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View Full Version : April 12, 1861: Single most defining four years in US history begins



Okla-homey
4/12/2007, 06:52 AM
April 12, 1861 Fort Sumter fired upon.

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146 years ago today, the American Civil War begins when South Carolina secessionist forces intent on maintaining their slave-based economy fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. The United States became a fundamentally different place at the war's end.

The fort had been the source of tension between the Union and infant Confederacy for several months. After South Carolina seceded, the state demanded the fort be turned over but Union officials refused. A supply ship, the "Star of the West," tried to reach Fort Sumter on January 9 to resupply the besieged Sumter garrison, but a shore battery manned by Citadel cadets opened fire and drove it away.

For both sides, Sumter was a symbol of sovereignty. The Union could not allow it to fall to the Confederates, although throughout the Deep South other federal installations had already been seized.

For South Carolinians, secession meant little if the hated Yankees still held the stronghold which controlled access to their most important seaport. The issue hung in the air when Abraham Lincoln took the oath of office on March 4, putting secessionists on notice in his inauguration address: "You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors."

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US Major Robert Anderson, 2d US Heavy Artillery, commander of the Ft Sumter garrison

The Confederate Congress meeting at the Confederacy's first capital in Montgomery, Alabama, had decided almost a month earlier on February 15 that Sumter and other forts must be acquired "either by negotiation or force." Negotiation, it seemed, had failed. The Confederates demanded surrender of the fort, but a son of the South who remained loyal to "the old flag", US Major Robert Anderson of Kentucky, commander of Fort Sumter, refused.

At 4:30 a.m. on April 12, the Confederate guns opened fire. It's worth noting that Edmund Ruffin, one of the South's most vocal firebrands of secession was offered the "privilege" of pulling the firing lanyard on the first gun, yet Ruffin couldn't bring himself to do it. Instead, an officer in the SC militia did the deed. For thirty-three hours, the shore batteries lobbed 4,000 explosive shells in the direction of the fort but no one was hit inside the fort.

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Edmund Ruffin all accoutered in his fightin' duds and photographed in Charleston during that fateful springtime. Ruffin holds an M1842 .69 caliber smoothbore percussion musket and sports a white buff leather shoulder and waistbelt bearing percussion cap and cartridge boxes. Ruffin was p1ssed his native Virginia wasn't among the first Southern states to breach their contract with the United States and high-tailed it to Charleston to get in on the treasonous fun. The "PG" on his hat doesn't stand for Proud Gonzo, it stands for a SC militia regiment, the "Palmetto Guards."

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Eight times during the bombardment Sumter's flagpole had been hit without serious injury; but at near 2 P.M. that day the pole was shot off near the peak and the flag fell among the gleaming cinders. Lieutenant Hall rescued the precious bunting before it took fire. Sergeant Peter Hart shinnied up the pole, and nailed it in place it amid deadly shot and shell, where the scarred banner was kept flying defiantly.

Finally, the garrison inside the battered fort raised the white flag. No one on either side had been killed, although two US soldiers died on April 14th when the departing soldiers fired a gun salute, and some cartridges exploded prematurely. It was a nearly bloodless beginning to America's bloodiest war.

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After the bombardment and departure of US forces, the new Confederate flag waves defiantly over the shattered fort. It would fly there until February 19, 1865 when US forces re-entered the fort after Charleston was evacuated by Confederate forces who were hastily and futiley flung in the path of Sherman's forces moving through the state

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Ft Sumter is administered by the National Park Service. It may be visited by a short boat ride from the city of Charleston. To get a sense of how much damage the fort sustained during the Civil War, realize that in 1861, the brick walls extended to the height of the smaller flagpoles ringing the tall flagpole seen in this photo. The black concrete emplacement in the fort's center is a late 19th century leftover when the fort was reinforced and equippied with modern coast artillery to defend against invasion during the run-up to the Spanish American War.

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One of the coolest things your correspondent has ever done was on 19 Feb. 2005, when he took part in a reenactment of the Federal re-occupation of Ft Sumter. A group of 89 living historians from literally all over the US camped on Morris Island across the channel from Ft Sumter and on the morning of 19 Feb. rowed across the channel in period rowboats to occupy Ft Sumter while portraying the company of the 52d Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry who did it the first time exactly 140 years earlier.

Enduring Legacy of the Civil War

Recently departed Civil War historian and native Mississipian Shelby Foote probably explained the impact of the Civil War in the fewest yet most powerful and accurate terms when he said, "Before the Civil War, people referred to the country as 'These United States,' after the war, people began to refer to the newly reformed nation as 'The United States.'" IOW, for good or bad, the constitutional debate over the issue of "states rights" was settled once and for all.

Shortly after conclusion of the war, the XIII - XV amendments to the Constitution were ratified and became the law of the land. Slavery was forever outlawed in the "Land of the Free," newly freed slaves were given the right to vote, and the original "Bill of Rights" Fifth Amendment notion that no American could be denied his life, liberty or property without due process of law was applied to the action of state governments. Further, the XIVth made law the principle that no state could deny its residents the rights enjoyed by all US citizens under the Constitution.

Finally, citizenship acquired by birth in the United States was made a Constitutional principle (XIVth Amendment) -- a matter which today is a source of friction as we struggle with the immigration issue and what to do about the minor children born of illegal migrants in the US when/if their non-citizen parents face deportation.

Postscript:

What of old Edmund Ruffin, the secession "fire-eater" who fomented the rebellion through word and deed yet lacked the will to fire the first shot aginst Fort Sumter on this day in 1861?

Interestly, because he couldn't bear the thought of life in a world without slavery, he blew his own brains out when the war ended in a triumph for United States forces. Ruffin left a "suicide note." After the surrender of Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House almost four years to the day Ft Sumter was fired upon, the fiery Slaveocrat penned these last words in his diary:


I here declare my unmitigated hatred to Yankee rule -- to all political, social and business connection with the Yankees and to the Yankee race. Would that I could impress these sentiments, in their full force, on every living Southerner and bequeath them to every one yet to be born! May such sentiments be held universally in the outraged and down-trodden South, though in silence and stillness, until the now far-distant day shall arrive for just retribution for Yankee usurpation, oppression and atrocious outrages, and for deliverance and vengeance for the now ruined, subjugated and enslaved Southern States!

...And now with my latest writing and utterance, and with what will be near my latest breath, I here repeat and would willingly proclaim my unmitigated hatred to yankee rule--to all political, social and business connections with Yankees, and the perfidious, malignant and vile Yankee race.

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Harry Beanbag
4/12/2007, 07:01 AM
At least ol' Edmund finally gained the courage to do what needed to be done.

JohnnyMack
4/12/2007, 09:35 AM
IBTFan

TUSooner
4/12/2007, 09:41 AM
I now believe in reincarnation.... Ruffin = FaninAma
;)

SicEmBaylor
4/12/2007, 10:01 AM
I have something to say on this subject, but it'll have to wait until after class.

Harry Beanbag
4/12/2007, 04:46 PM
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SicEmBaylor
4/12/2007, 04:48 PM
Sic semper tyrannis.

Okla-homey
4/12/2007, 09:04 PM
Sic semper tyrannis.

Zat all you got? Quoting John Wilkes Booth? The murdering drunken scum's shout as he leapt from the President's Box at Ford's Theater after shooting the President in the back? Fortunately, the low down syphlitic cowardly trash snagged his spur on some bunting and broke his leg when he hit the stage. It made catching his treasonous a$$ easier as he tried to get away.

reevie
4/12/2007, 09:28 PM
I wonder why Ruffin didn't go to Brazil or Mexico with the other Conferedate ex-pats? Seems like a better option than blowing your brains out to me.

SicEmBaylor
4/12/2007, 09:28 PM
Zat all you got? Quoting John Wilkes Booth? The murdering drunken scum's shout as he leapt from the President's Box at Ford's Theater after shooting the President in the back? Fortunately, the low down syphlitic cowardly trash snagged his spur on some bunting and broke his leg when he hit the stage. It made catching his treasonous a$$ easier as he tried to get away.

That's correct. I thought of putting some effort into it but frankly I'm spent for a little while.

I did, however, send one of my history prof's a "Happy Secession Day" e-mail since she is from and graduated from S. Carolina University. She wrote me back and reminded me it was also the date of the formal surrender of Lee's army.

Ehhh

landrun
4/12/2007, 09:34 PM
Oh yeah. I love these threads. Yet another Abe Lincoln kicked the Souths butt threads!

Today the war started... and total domination of the South by the North commenced uninterrupted for four straight years.

Good ole Abe saved the Union. The single greatest president in US history. :cool:

Okla-homey
4/13/2007, 06:10 AM
I wonder why Ruffin didn't go to Brazil or Mexico with the other Conferedate ex-pats? Seems like a better option than blowing your brains out to me.

Especially since slavery remained legal in Brazil until the late 1880's. Woo hoo! twenty more years of owning human people (literally) would have been possible for the mere price of a boat trip.