Posted on 04/12/2007 9:34:54 AM PDT by TexConfederate1861
On March 5, 1861, the day after his inauguration as president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln received a message from Maj. Robert Anderson, commander of the U.S. troops holding Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. The message stated that there was less than a six week supply of food left in the fort.
Attempts by the Confederate government to settle its differences with the Union were spurned by Lincoln, and the Confederacy felt it could no longer tolerate the presense of a foreign force in its territory. Believing a conflict to be inevitable, Lincoln ingeniously devised a plan that would cause the Confederates to fire the first shot and thus, he hoped, inspire the states that had not yet seceded to unite in the effort to restore the Union.
On April 8, Lincoln notified Gov. Francis Pickens of South Carolina that he would attempt to resupply the fort. The Confederate commander at Charleston, Gen.P.G.T. Beauregard, was ordered by the Confederate government to demand the evacuation of the fort and if refused, to force its evacuation. On April 11, General Beauregard delivered the ultimatum to Anderson, who replied, "Gentlemen, if you do not batter the fort to pieces about us, we shall be starved out in a few days." On direction of the Confederate government in Montgomery, Beauregard notified Anderson that if he would state the time of his evacuation, the Southern forces would hold their fire. Anderson replied that he would evacuate by noon on April 15 unless he received other instructions or additional supplies from his government. (The supply ships were expected before that time.) Told that his answer was unacceptable and that Beauregard would open fire in one hour, Anderson shook the hands of the messengers and said in parting, "If we do not meet again in this world, I hope we may meet in the better one." At 4:30 A.M. on April 12, 1861, 43 Confederate guns in a ring around Fort Sumter began the bombardment that initiated the bloodiest war in American history.
In her Charleston hotel room, diarist Mary Chesnet heard the opening shot. "I sprang out of bed." she wrote. "And on my knees--prostrate--I prayed as I never prayed before." The shelling of Fort Sumter from the batteries ringing the harbor awakened Charleston's residents, who rushed out into the predawn darkness to watch the shells arc over the water and burst inside the fort. Mary Chesnut went to the roof of her hotel, where the men were cheering the batteries and the women were praying and crying. Her husband, Col. James Chesnut, had delivered Beauregard's message to the fort. "I knew my husband was rowing around in a boat somewhere in that dark bay," she wrote, "and who could tell what each volley accomplished of death and destruction?"
Inside the fort, no effort was made to return the fire for more than two hours. The fort's supply of ammunition was ill-suited for the task at hand, and because there were no fuses for their explosive shells, only solid shot could be used against the Rebel batteries. The fort's biggest guns, heavy Columbiads and eight-inch howitzers, were on the top tier of the fort and there were no masonry casemates to protect the gunners, so Anderson opted to use only the casemated guns on the lower tier. About 7:00 A.M., Capt. Abner Doubleday, the fort's second in command, was given the honor of firing the first shot in defense of the fort. The firing continued all day, the federals firing slowly to conserve ammunition. At night the fire from the fort stopped, but the confederates still lobbed an occasional shell in Sumter.
Although they had been confined inside Fort Sumter for more than three months, unsupplied and poorly nourished, the men of the Union garrison vigorously defended their post from the Confederate bombardment that began on the morning of April 12, 1861. Several times, red-hod cannonballs had lodged in the fort's wooden barracks and started fires. But each time, the Yankee soldiers, with a little help from an evening rainstorm, had extinguished the flames. The Union garrison managed to return fire all day long, but because of a shortage of cloth gunpowder cartridges, they used just six of their cannon and fired slowly.
The men got little sleep that night as the Confederate fire continued, and guards kept a sharp lookout for a Confederate attack or relief boats. Union supply ships just outside the harbor had been spotted by the garrison, and the men were disappointed that the ships made no attempt to come to their relief.
After another breakfast of rice and salt pork on the morning of April 13, the exhausted Union garrison again began returning cannon fire, but only one round every 10 minutes. Soon the barracks again caught fire from the Rebel hot shot, and despite the men's efforts to douse the flames, by 10:00 A.M. the barracks were burning out of control. Shortly thereafter, every wooden structure in the fort was ablaze, and a magazine containing 300 pounds of gunpowder was in danger of exploding. "We came very near being stifled with the dense livid smoke from the burning buildings," recalled one officer. "The men lay prostrate on the ground, with wet hankerchiefs over their mouths and eyes, gasping for breath."
The Confederate gunners saw the smoke and were well aware of the wild uproar they were causing in the island fort. They openly showed their admiration for the bravery of the Union garrison by cheering and applauding when, after a prolonged stillness, the garrison sent a solid shot screaming in their direction.
"The crasing of the shot, the bursting of the shells, the falling of the walls, and the roar of the flames, made a pandemonium of the fort," wrote Capt. Abner Doubleday on the afternoon of April 13, 1861. He was one of the Union garrison inside Fort Sumter in the middle of South Carolina's Charleston harbor. The fort's large flag staff was hit by fire from the surrounding Confederate batteries, and the colors fell to the ground. Lt. Norman J. Hall braved shot and shell to race across the parade ground to retrieve the flag. Then he and two others found a substitute flagpole and raised the Stars and Stripes once more above the fort.
Once the flag came down, Gen. P.G.T. Beaugregard, who commanded the Confederate forces, sent three of his aides to offer the fort's commander, Union Maj. Robert Anderson, assistance in extinguishing the fires. Before they arrived they saw the garrison's flag raised again, and then it was replaced with a white flag. Arriving at the fort, Beaugregard's aides were informed that the garrison had just surrendered to Louis T. Wigfall, a former U.S. senator from Texas. Wigfall, completely unauthorized, had rowed out to the fort from Morris Island, where he was serving as a volunteer aide, and received the surrender of the fort. The terms were soon worked out, and Fort Sumter, after having braved 33 hours of bombardment, its food and ammunition nearly exhausted, fell on April 13, 1861, to the curshing fire power of the Rebels. Miraculously, no one on either side had been killed or seriously wounded.
The generous terms of surrender allowed Anderson to run up his flag for a hunderd-gun salute before he and his men evacuated the fort the next day. The salute began at 2:00 P.M. on April 14, but was cut short to 50 guns after an accidental explosion killed one of the gunners and mortally wounded another. Carrying their tattered banner, the men marched out of the fort and boarded a boat that ferried them to the Union ships outside the harbor. They were greeted as heroes on their return to the North.
Does that include Pea Ridge? Or are you just talking about the small-unit fights, when you say "partisan actions"?
I visited Pea Ridge in 1987, and I'd have to score that one as at least a marginal or even a provisional Union victory. The South had great field position at the end of the first day, and could have closed out the action and forced a retreat, if not for the cowardice of the muleskinners during the night.
It didn't help that the Confederates lost two experienced general officers during the battle. The old Napoleonic habit of generals' reconnoitering by "riding out" may have cost the Confederacy the entire war, considering they lost critical leaders at Pea Ridge, Shiloh, and Chancellorsville.
Again, I gave you fair warning that if you that if you persisted in threatening me in private messages, I'd post them for all to see. Too bad if that showed you to be the bully and coward that you are, a cockroach afraid of the light.
Yes, there is.
Condemnation by the exercise of eminent domain. Expropriation. Nationalization. Confiscation. Conscription.
Want more?
All legal, btw, as long as compensation is offered. Which it was -- although Lincoln wouldn't hear of treating with people he'd rather batter to the ground.
“Sheelby Foote was speaking of the writer Faulkner when he said (and I paraphrase as even now a tear comes to my eye) Every Southern male has within him that feeling deep in his heart, that feeling before the final charge at Gettysburg when the South was winning the war and final victory was within their grasp.”
Yep, and he was correct.
But we're not talking about "PROVING your lineage," we're talking about the census being a resource. Your claim is that the census is worthless. I showed that both the DAR and the SCV accept it. You've never shown anything that says the census is no good. In the past, you've claimed that the census missed too many people to be useful. Now you're claiming that they actually manufactured people--Stand Watie's slaves.
otoh, you have RUINED what little reputation for HONESTY, DECENCY & FAIR PLAY, that you MIGHT have had previously,by doing what you did.(are you feeling "a little lonely" since NOBODY but "Mr SPIN, the BIGOT","ftd, the useful idiot" & i will post to you???)
and you are ADMITTING that you published PRIVATE communications to you from me WITHOUT my CONSENT, after threatening ME with "disclosing your private messages if you don't stop posting"???
imVho, "you are TOAST" & a SELF-ADMITTED creep, a LIAR & a TROLL.
btw, you might try posting to "since 1854". he, TOO, is a BANNED FReeper (formerly: GrandOldPartisan), who is back in another guise.MAYBE he will "LOWER HIMSELF" by posting to you????
laughing AT you, TROLL!!!
free dixie,sw
“It didn’t help that the Confederates lost two experienced general officers during the battle. The old Napoleonic habit of generals’ reconnoitering by “riding out” may have cost the Confederacy the entire war, considering they lost critical leaders at Pea Ridge, Shiloh, and Chancellorsville.”
Excellent point.
that statement is FACT! and once more (surprise,surprise!) you are digging the hole you are IN deeper.
your REPUTATION is as a LIAR, a CREEP & a TROLL & you will (imVho) NEVER change that FACT, either.
as i said earlier, as a FReeper,you are TOAST!
why not head over to DU & post your hate-FILLED, simplistic LIES, there. evidently they LIKE trolls, liars, REVISIONISTS, fools, bigots & HATERS on DU.
laughing AT you, CREEP.
free dixie,sw
"fwiw, i could find out who you are in 10 minutes IF i cared. and i don’t
i have lots of FReeper friends." 01/29/2007
"fyi, i CAN get you banned" 02/05/2007
and you are ADMITTING that you published PRIVATE communications to you from me WITHOUT my CONSENT, after threatening ME with "disclosing your private messages if you don't stop posting"???
"By the way, if you want to communicate these sorts of threats, have the courage to do it in the public forum where everyone can see it. If it happens again, I’ll post all your messages to me onto the boards." 02/23/2007
"For other generations back to the Patriot, one or more of the following items would usually be considered acceptable proof: cemetery records, tombstone inscriptions, obituaries, probate records, wills, census records, Bible records, local histories, and well-documented genealogies.--DAR
As for the SCV, what kind of scam are they running if they're charging to trace your confederate ancestry through census records, but won't accept them as proof?
LG:
I can concede, but I always thought that Johnston’s death was the damper on the Confederate drive towards the river, etc. :)
Yes, lets.
Fort Henry, Fort Donalson, Memphis, Island Number 10, Shiloh (a Union victory even if you prefer not to recognize it. The Union repelled the Confederate attack, held the field, and forced the Rebel forces to withdraw), Iuka, Corinth, Stones River, New Orleans, Chattanooga, the Vicksburg campaign, the Atlanta campaign, the march to Sanvannah, Franklin, the Carolina campaigns. Whole Rebel armies captured at Fort Donalson and at Vicksburg. What do you have to offer? Chickamauga (which was against the Army of the Cumberland, not the Army of the Tennessee) and a skirmish at Galveston.
For the most part, inept Generals like Bragg, and Hood were the only reason for Confederate Losses in the West.
And who did Lee run his string of wins up against? Hooker, Pope, Burnside, and McClellan. It the Union wins in the west are due to poor Confederate generalship then the same can be said about the Rebel wins.
Anytime there were competent Generals, the Confederates won.
So...what you're saying is that there were no competent Confederate generals in the west?
My whole point in all of this is YES, no question that the Federals won the war, but it was certainly no brilliant victory, but rather a sheer overwhelming of the South by manpower and resources!
Ha!
Galveston a “skirmish”?
I think not.
Neither was Mansfield.
Mansfield was a major attempt to invade Northern Louisiana and Texas, and the Federals got their proverbial butts kicked.
And yes, I AM saying that most of Generals that had major commands like Bragg, and Hood were NOT competent.
The Generals that were, such as Cleberne and Forrest, didn’t have the power.
Also, in the east, I don’t consider many of the Union Generals incompetent. McClellan for example, was excellent at organization. He simply wasn’t utilized correctly. McDowell was decent, but he underestimated the enemy.
And no matter how good they were, the combination of Lee and Jackson were unbeatable.
Commanded by Nathaniel Banks. Again, you claim that the Union victories are due to inferior Confederate generalship so why isn't the reverse true? Beating a Nat Banks or a Ben Butler wasn't much of an accomplishment.
The Generals that were, such as Cleberne and Forrest, didn’t have the power.
Sounds like more feeble excuses to me.
Hooker? Burnside? Butler? Pope?
And no matter how good they were, the combination of Lee and Jackson were unbeatable.
Until your side shot half of them.
True...Your side obviously couldn’t do it. :)
NOBODY was complimentary to you OR evidently thought that ANY of the fault for this mess is mine.
see what being HATEFUL gets you on FR??? (offhand i'd say that "you've shot yourself in the foot").
laughing AT you, TROLL.
free dixie,sw
your posts are:
DIShonest,
simplistic,
generally SILLY,
filled with arrogance,
and point out that you should be laughed AT & RIDICULED, rather than taken seriously by anyone.
laughing AT you, TROLL.
free dixie,sw
Again with the mystery correspondents who are either too cowardly to say such things to me directly or are figments of your imagination like so many other things. Not one single person has said anything to me publicly or privately about the posting of your threats to me.
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