CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA........FORT SUMTER

CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA

Fort Sumter

Bridge over the Cooper River
Charleston Harbor
South Carolina 

             

The Civil War began after the Confederate States of America fired on a Federal Fort, Fort Sumter, on April 12, 1861. Major Robert Anderson and 128 men had taken refuge there a year earlier after South Carolina had seceded from the Union.  The fort was poorly prepared to defend and sustain itself in the coming months.  

When President Lincoln announced that the fort would be supplied with armament and food, the Confederates took this as an act of aggression. The Charleston batteries opened fire on the fort.  4000 shells pounded the fort and reduced it to "flaming rubble". Anderson and his men were helpless to defend themselves and were forced to surrender.  

President Lincoln ordered 75,000 troops to suppress the Confederates who had fired on the American Flag.  Thus, the most costly war in U.S. history had begun.  Four years later on April 9, 1865, General Robert E. Lee of the Confederate States of American surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant of the United States of America at Appomattox Court House in Virginia.

Fort Sumter

Charleston Harbor

Severely damaged during the war and never completely Restored

Military occupation ended in  1919

It is difficult to take sides as it pertains to the Civil War

Being a Texan as a child, and not from one of the 11 states that seceded, I still felt a strong dislike for Yankees

It is unimaginable to think of what America would be like today if the South had been Successful

There are those who live in the deep south who still believe that

The South Will Rise Again

  

Along the Charleston Battery


Traveling through the south, one gets a sense of pride in being a southerner and in being an American