Fort Sumter National Monument

Fort Sumter National Monument, national monument and historic fort at the mouth of the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina, famous as the scene of the first act of war in the American Civil War.

After it became clear that Abraham Lincoln had won the presidential election of 1860, South Carolina passed an order of secession on December 20. Six days later Major Robert Anderson, commander of the Union forces at Charleston, moved his small garrison from Fort Moultrie, also in the Charleston Harbor, to the unfinished, ungarrisoned Fort Sumter, farther from shore and less vulnerable to land attack. Governor Francis Pickens of South Carolina demanded the surrender of Fort Sumter; Anderson refused. On January 9, 1861, the Union merchant vessel Star of the West attempted to land supplies and reinforcements for Fort Sumter, but was fired on and withdrew.

By the time Lincoln took office on March 4, six more states had seceded, and Fort Sumter was one of the two Southern forts remaining under Union control. Lincoln was faced with either recalling Anderson or risking war by providing him with supplies and reinforcements. After much agonizing, Lincoln notified Pickens on April 8 that an attempt would be made to send provisions, but no troops or ammunition, to Fort Sumter, then in danger of being starved out. Three days later General Pierre G. T. Beauregard, under orders from Confederate President Jefferson Davis, demanded evacuation of the fort. Anderson stated that he would evacuate only if he received neither provisions nor instructions from the federal government by noon on April 15. This answer proved unsatisfactory, and at 4:30 am on April 12, Fort Johnson in Charleston fired the first shot of a 34-hour bombardment, ending all negotiations and marking the beginning of the Civil War. Lincoln's relieving fleet arrived the same day but could not enter the harbor because of cannon fire from the shore. Anderson surrendered the fort on April 14; neither side suffered any casualties. The following day the United States declared war on the Confederacy.

Confederate troops completed construction of the fort, greatly strengthened it, and in 1863-64 held it through several massive Union attacks and a 15-month siege. Only on February 17, 1865, with the approach of the army of the Union general William Tecumseh Sherman, did they evacuate the fort. The site became a national monument in 1948. Area, 81 hectares (200 acres).