Top Ten Facts About the Battle of Fort Sumter

The Battle of Fort Sumter is often cited as the “bloodless battle” that ushered in the American Civil War, but there is much more to it than that. Here are the top ten facts about the Battle of Fort Sumter. I bet there are some you haven’t heard before…

1. The Union commander, Major Robert Anderson, not only knew the Confederate commander at the Battle of Fort Sumter, General PGT Beauregard, but the two were friends. The friendship goes back to Beauregard’s time at West Point Military Academy, where Anderson was his gunnery instructor.
2. At 3:20 a.m. on April 12, 1861, General Beauregard informed Commander Anderson that he would begin the bombardment of Fort Sumter within the hour. The first gun opened fire on the fort around 4:30.
3. The Union’s second-in-command was Captain Abner Doubleday of Cooperstown, New York. For many years, Doubleday was credited with inventing the game of baseball, but that story has now been debunked.
4. There were several Union Navy ships outside the harbor for part of the first day and all of the second day of the Battle of Fort Sumter, but no effort was made by these ships to enter the harbor to aid or defend the fort.
5. While Southerners generally praised the bravery of the men at the fort (Confederate soldiers and citizens cheered when Union guns resumed fire after stopping to fight fires at the fort on the second day), they considered the actions of Navy ships as cowardly and shameful. .
6. Union troops ran out of cartridges to fill with gunpowder, so they had to improvise. They used Major Anderson’s socks and tore up all the shirts they could find to prepare the powder cartridges to fire the cannons.
7. The bombardment of Fort Sumter lasted approximately thirty-four hours, ending on the afternoon of April 13, 1861, when Anderson and Beauregard agreed to terms for the fort’s surrender.
8. Despite the fact that there was no loss of life during the Battle of Fort Sumter, the entire event was not entirely bloodless. On April 14, immediately before the fort was evacuated, Union troops saluted their flag as it was withdrawn. During this salute, there was an accidental explosion that killed two Union soldiers and wounded four more.
9. In 1863, the Union Navy attempted to retake Fort Sumter and succeeded in razing it almost to ruin; but they were unable to capture the fort from the Confederates. It did not return to Union control until after the fall of Charleston, South Carolina, in February 1865.
10. On April 14, 1865, a ceremony was held at the newly reclaimed Fort Sumter. During this ceremony, Major Anderson (by then a general) again hoisted the same flag that he had torn down in evacuating the fort exactly four years earlier.

You learned something new? I hope so, and I also hope that these facts from the Battle of Fort Sumter have given you a new appreciation for this battle and the men who fought in it.