by David White
One hundred fifty years ago, the Holy City was at a fever pitch. The conflict between north and South was about to burst into flames. As the sequicentennial observance of the War Between the States approaches, Charleston Inside/Out recalls a few events leading to its outbreak on April 12, 1861, when the guns of Charleston bombarded Fort Sumter. We touch upon selected incidents from the preceding five year period, including some of special significance to Charleston and South Carolina, especially the obscure story of the first shots fired by rebels against the union.
The conflict between north and south had raged for decades. The Missouri Compromise, reached in 1820, was supposed to restrict the spread of slavery, but it was repealed in 1854 by the Kansas-nebraska Act. Our focus begins with the turbulent year 1856. In May of that year, Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner delivered his “Crime against Kansas” speech, denouncing South Carolina Senator Andrew Pickens Butler, of Edgefield District, for supporting the Kansas-nebraska Act. Butler’s cousin, Congressman Preston Brooks, also of Edgefield District, sought vindication by caning Sumner unconscious on the Senate floor, incapacitating him for three years. A majority in the House of Representatives voted to expel Brooks, but the motion failed for lack of the required two thirds. Even so, Brooks resigned his seat, and returned home, where he was re-elected in July with all of the nearly 8,000 votes cast, except one ballot that was left blank. The new Republican Party, founded to oppose slavery in the territories, made a strong showing in the national election of 1856. In April, 1857, the U.S. Supreme Court, in the Dred Scott case, held that Congress could not forbid slavery in the territories and, therefore, the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional. In 1858, South Carolina Senator James H. Hammond declared on the floor of the Senate: “no power on earth dares make war on (cotton). Cotton is King.” In 1859, John Brown and a few followers, financed by northern abolitionists, raided the federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, virginia, intending to incite a slave rebellion. Southerners feared that black majorities, if freed, would turn on their former masters and butcher them, as had occurred in Haiti. In the Charleston Mercury, Robert Barnwell Rhett, an avid proponent of disunion, compared Brown’s foray to nat Turner’s massacre of virginians some thirty years earlier. A new Charleston vigilance Association was formed to monitor slaves, free blacks, and “traitorous” whites. Extreme extra legal methods were employed. One writer, Walter Fraser, has observed that “Charleston more closely resembled a police state than any other city in the nation.”
“South Carolina is too small to be a Republic, and too large to be an insane asylum.”
In April, 1860, the once dominant Democratic Party convened at Institution Hall on Meeting Street, just north of Broad Street, but, hopelessly divided between northern and Southern wings, soon disbanded. Rhett’s Mercury declared that the break up of the only party pretending to be national left the union with nothing “to arrest the fierce collisions” between north and south. The national Democrats later convened in Baltimore and nominated StephenA. Douglas. Southern Democrats nominated John C. Breckenridge. In the meantime, the Republicans nominated and united behind Abraham Lincoln. Although many South Carolina leaders did not favor disunion, the tide was so strong that almost all of them adopted the position that the state would secede if Lincoln was elected. One longtime unionist, the prominent lawyer, James L. Petigru, a former Attorney General of South Carolina, condemned the mounting hysteria. Addressing a group of secessionists, he uttered the classic comment: “South Carolina is too small to be a Republic, and too large to be an insane asylum.”
In november, 1860, when the presidential election results were confirmed, the General Assembly authorized and appointed a Secession Convention. On December 20, 1860, in Institute Hall, 169 delegates unanimously adopted the Ordinance of Secession from the union. An ecstatic celebration followed in Charleston.
Meanwhile, Major Robert Anderson commanded a 73-man federal garrison at Ft. Moultrie on Sullivan’s Island. Concerned about an attack by land, in the night of December 26, Major Anderson removed his entire troop to Fort Sumter, a large incomplete fort located on a man-made island in the harbor, three and a half miles from the city. South Carolina Gov. Pickens demanded that Anderson quit Ft. Sumter and return to Ft. Moultrie. It was claimed that U. S. President Buchanan, trying to maintain peace, had entered an unwritten agreement with former Governor William Henry Gist not to send reinforcements to Ft. Sumter. South Carolina forces then occupied Ft. Moultrie and established artillery batteries there and on Sullivan’s, Morris and James Islands.
RAISIN' CANE: In 1856, South Carolina Congressman Preston Brooks (right) stormed the Senate to beat Charles Sumner of Massachusetts (left) with a cane.
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Citadel Cadets were recalled from Christmas vacation to construct and man a battery on the northern end of Morris Island to command the channel. On January 1, 1861, Major Peter F. Stevens (Citadel ’49), accompanied by a detachment of about fifty cadets and four 24-pounder siege guns, proceeded by steamer to Morris Island.
Lame duck President Buchanan attempted to reinforce Major Anderson on Ft. Sumter without a furor. Believing that a merchant vessel would not draw fire, he authorized men and materials to be sent from New York on board the Star of the West, an unarmed merchant steamer under contract to the War Department. With 200 men, powder, shells, and food supplies on board, the steamer left New York harbor on January 5th. Despite precautions to keep the expedition a secret, news of the expedition leaked out of Washington, D. C. South Carolina officials were warned of the mission by telegraph and determined to prevent the ship from reaching Ft. Sumter. When he learned of the expedition, Buchanan’s Secretary of Interior, Jacob Thompson, of Mississippi, angrily resigned, feeling betrayed because he had assured Southern friends that no additional troops would be sent to Ft. Sumter.
The Star of the West arrived off the darkened Charleston harbor about midnight. Near daylight on January 9th, the steamer was spotted in the harbor by a South Carolina patrol steamer, which then sailed up the main channel ahead of the alien ship, firing rockets to alert troops on the surrounding islands. Citadel Cadet William Stewart Simkins, of Beaufort, walking his guard on Morris Island, noticed the flares and then, through the fog, spied the Star of the West in the main channel, which ran close to Morris Island for some distance. The cadets were summoned to their station on gun no. 1. As the ship moved into range, Maj. Stewart hesitated, then gave the order: “Commence Firing”. Cadet George Edward “Tuck” Haynsworth, a First Classman from Sumter, yanked the lanyard on No. 1 to fire the first shot of the impending war across her bow. As the Star of the West continued up the channel, additional guns were fired from Morris Island, and then batteries from Ft. Moultrie and Sullivan’s Island joined in, forcing her to retreat, leaving Ft. Sumter unreinforced.
An uneasy peace ensued until after the inauguration of President Lincoln in March, 1861 and the assumption of military command in Charleston by Confederate General P. G. T. Beauregard. After intense bombardment, Ft. Sumter went up in flames, and Maj. Anderson surrendered Ft. Sumter on April 14, 1861. Once again church bells rang, and Charleston celebrated.
