The Battle of Fort Sumter was the first battle of the American Civil War, fought on 12-13 April 1861. The US Army fort of Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor was bombarded by the Confederate army of P.G.T. Beauregard after its commander Robert Anderson refused to surrender, and, without any chance of receiving reinforcements, he ultimately capitulated on 13 April. The bloodless battle at Fort Sumter started the bloodiest war in American history, and President Abraham Lincoln's call for 75,000 volunteers led to Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee joining the secessionist Confederacy.
Background[]
By the mid-19th century, the slavery issue had caused heated debates in both the United States government and among the people. In 1854, the Republican Party was founded as an abolitionist political party, aiming to limit the spread of slavery and gradually abolish it. In the 1860 presidential election, the Republicans chose the moderate anti-extentionist Abraham Lincoln as their presidential candidate, and many proslavery southerners feared that, if elected, Lincoln would abolish slavery and destroy the American South's plantation-based economy. When Lincoln was elected President, the southern states began to discuss secession from the Union. On 20 December 1860, South Carolina was the first state to pass an ordinance of secession, and it was followed by Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas, which formed the Confederate States of America in February 1861, with Mississippi politician Jefferson Davis being chosen as the president of its provisional government. Southern militias which had been raised to respond to the threat of slave uprisings in the same vein as John Brown's 1859 Raid on Harpers Ferry formed the Confederate States Army, commanded by several well-trained generals who included West Point and Virginia Military Institute graduates, Mexican-American War veterans, or plantation owners and lawyers who raised their own regiments. The Confederate States Army began to demand the surrender of federal forts across the South, and most of them voluntarily surrendered their arms and their fortifications in exchange for safe passage to the North. However, on 26 December 1861 Major Robert Anderson, the commander of the Union forts in Charleston, South Carolina, evacuated the garrison of Fort Moultrie to nearby Fort Sumter, which was modernized and could withstand a siege. President James Buchanan failed to send supplies to the fort on 9 January 1861 when the unarmed merchant ship Star of the West was fired upon, and P.G.T. Beauregard soon took command of the amassing Confederate army around Charleston.
Battle[]
Beauregard issued an ultimatum to the defenders of Fort Sumter, warning them that, if by 4:00 AM on 12 April 1861 the fort had not surrendered, he would give permission for his men to open fire on the fort. He energetically strengthened the batteries around Charleston harbor aimed at Fort Sumter, while the Union soldiers installed additional guns, despite shortages of men, food, and supplies. After Anderson refused to evacuate the fort, the Confederates opened fire with an artillery barrage at 4:30 AM (signalled by Edmund Ruffin's rifle shot), and, after 34 hours of withering bombardment, Major Anderson finally agreed to evacuate. During the surrender ceremonies on 14 April, 2 Union soldiers - Daniel Hough and Edward Galloway - were accidentally killed in a gunpowder explosion, marking the first two deaths of the war.
Aftermath[]
The call for volunteers
On 15 April 1861, a day after the fort's surrender, President Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to serve for three months and recapture the forts and preserve the Union. Several Northern states filled their quotas quickly; Ohio had recruited enough volunteers in 16 days that almost 75,000 troops were raised in Ohio alone. However, Missouri governor Claiborne Jackson said that not one Missourian would take up arms for the "unholy crusade", while Kentucky governor Beriah Magoffin said that Kentucky would furnish no troops for the "wicked purpose of subduing her sister Southern states". The slave states of Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee responded to the call to arms by seceding from the Union and joining the Confederacy, and Virginia's capital of Richmond was eventually chosen to serve as the Confederacy's capital.