When Did The Civil War Really Begin?

For 165 years the historical consensus regarding the event that catapulted the United States into Civil War has been long established. Accordingly, the war began at 4:30 am, on April 12, 1861, when Confederate forces under command of Brigadier General P.G.T. Beauregard fired upon Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. This consensus, however, ignores a stack of historical facts that suggest otherwise. That, in fact, South Carolina troops – prior to the establishment of the Southern Confederacy – acting under the orders of their governor, on January 9 of that year opened fire upon a Federal supply ship enroute to Fort Sumter, striking it at least once, thus forcing it to turn and put back to sea. What are the facts?

In November 1860, Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United States. On November 13, the South Carolina Legislature, in response to a Republican administration it conceived as abolitionist, voted to assemble a convention of delegates to determine the state’s response. Due to a smallpox outbreak in Columbia, that convention was held in Charleston, and on December 20 it was unanimously agreed that “the union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States, under the name of ‘The United States of America’ is hereby dissolved.”¹ By February, six additional Southern states had also seceded, and on February 8, 1861, the Confederate States of America was formed.

According to Sergeant S.E. Welch of South Carolina’s Zouave Cadets, then stationed in Charleston, “As soon as the announcement was made [of South Carolina’s secession], the excitement was beyond description. The Church bells were rung; cannon fired; the streets were crowded with people – some jubilant and highly elated; others with sad, grave faces. The question was repeatedly asked: ‘Will this lead to war:’ Many believed that it would.”² Naturally, no one at the time had the slightest inkling as to the carnage that would soon be unleashed.

South Carolina, asserting its sovereignty, began commandeering Federal forts and arsenals throughout the state. Near Charleston, Fort Moultrie – on Sullivan’s Island near the harbor’s entrance – remained in Federal hands, along with Fort Sumter, then under construction at the harbor’s mouth (see map below). According to Welch, the forces around Charleston under South Carolina’s command consisted of, “two regiments of Infantry – the rifle regiment under Col. J. Johnston Pettigrew, and the 17^th Regiment under Col. John Cunningham; the four batteries of artillery – the Washington, Marion, and Lafayette, and German; the two troops of Cavalry – the Charleston Light Dragoons, and German Hussars, with a Battalion of Citadel Cadets under Major P. F. Stevens, Superintendent.”³

At the moment, the only Federal force in the area was a battalion of artillery under Major Robert Anderson at Fort Moultrie. His force was meager, consisting of “nine officers, fifty-five men (artillerists), fifteen musicians, and thirty laborers – one hundred and nine men, of whom only sixty-three were combatants, one of the officers being an assistant surgeon…He began to be watchful of the approaches to Fort Moultrie, which is about four miles from Charleston, upon Sullivan’s Island, where, during a generation and a half of peace, a village had sprung up around it.”⁴

In late December, the Federal Government grew ambitious to reinforce Fort Sumter. Plans were made to send the USS Brooklyn, a twenty-one-gun sloop of war, south with the necessary supplies and additional troops. At Moultrie, Anderson was naturally anxious as to his situation, writing a friend that, “if attacked in force by any one [sic] but a simpleton, there is scarce a possibility of our being able to hold out long enough for our friends to come to our succor.” Aware of Anderson’s vulnerability, orders were verbally relayed to him through Assistant Adjutant General Butler that he was “to avoid any act which would needlessly provoke aggression,” but that he was to defend his position. However, the orders continued, “…but an attack on, or attempt to take possession of either of them [Moultrie or Sumter], will be regarded as an act of hostility, and you may then put your command in either of them which you deem proper.”⁵

On the day after Christmas 1860, Anderson, sensing his position increasingly untenable, ordered the artillery spiked, and secretly moved his battalion to Fort Sumter, surrounded by water at the harbor’s entrance. “The news caused great excitement in Charleston. The rebels saw themselves at once defiled and baffled,”⁶ Harper’s Weekly crowed of the move.

Anderson’s movement – a product of simple military prudence – caused great swoons of political consternation, both North and South. In the South, the movement was perceived as an affront to South Carolina’s unanimous declaration of the 20^th of December. While in the North Anderson was immediately hailed as a hero, stout in his duty, thumbing his nose at the hostile forces which greatly outnumbered him. Still, there were many, both North and South, who viewed Anderson’s move and the escalating situation as profoundly sobering.

“The effect of Major Anderson’s change of position was even greater throughout the country at large than at Charleston,” Harper’s Weekly admitted. “It flashed the gleam of arms upon the eager eyes of the people, and men saw suddenly what before they had only imagined.”⁷ And what they saw was the looming potential of war. Ohio Congressman Thomas Corwin wrote, “I cannot comprehend the madness of the times. Southern men are theoretically crazy. Extreme Northern men are practical fools, the latter are really quite as bad as the former. Treason is in the air around us every where [sic], & goes by the name of Patriotism.”⁸ In Charleston, James Louis Petigru, a prominent Charleston attorney was among the minority, wryly commenting that, “South Carolina is too small for a republic, but too large for an insane asylum.”⁹

The lame duck Buchanan administration fretted anew, worried that the heavily armed Brooklyn might cause a provocative confrontation, hence the civilian sidewheeler Star of the West was chartered to take its place. The ship was loaded with provisions, the troops onboard (some 200) ordered to remain below decks when approaching Charleston, and the ship set sail from New York on January 5.¹⁰ It was hoped the sidewheeler would slip in and out of Charleston harbor unnoticed, but word of the voyage was picked up in Congress and relayed to the governor’s office in South Carolina. At that point, a clash of arms appeared entirely likely.

Meanwhile, the governor had ordered defensive positions to be assumed in and around Charleston, and in late December those orders were put into action. Robert Sams, then a senior cadet at The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina, recalls the moment well: “Five days had scarcely elapsed after the passage of the Ordinance of Secession, when Major P. F. Stevens, the Superintendent of The Citadel, received orders from Governor F.W. Pickens to take a detachment of Cadets, and four 24 pounder siege guns – the best we had – to Morris Island, mount the guns, build a fortification so as to best command the channel in front of Morris Island, and leading to Charleston by Fort Sumter…Thus by the last day of December 1860 we were on Morris Island and in position to carry out the command of Governor Pickens.”¹¹ With word of the impending arrival of the Star of the West, Fort Moultrie and Castle Pinckney (a small island in the middle of the harbor) were also occupied by South Carolina troops.

During the Revolutionary War years, Charleston had been the fourth largest city in the United States, smaller in population only to Philadelphia, Boston, and New York. But by 1860, the country had grown in other directions, and Charleston could not even crack the top twenty with a population of 40,522.¹² Due to the Industrial Revolution, the North had become a manufacturing powerhouse, while the South remained wedded to agriculture and both regional populations reflected that change. Antebellum Charleston was seen as a serene city of Palmetto trees and Spanish Moss. The Citadel, located on Marion Square, along with the Virginia Military Institute, were at the time the two leading military academies in the South. Cadet Irvine Walker fondly recalled Charleston’s leisurely pace. “In the old days,” he wrote, “it was the fashion for the people of the City to parade up and down King Street in the winter, and on the Battery in the summer, on Saturday afternoons.”

Classes were small, and Cadets at The Citadel were subject to a rigorous and disciplined life of military and academic education, yet there were occasional light moments as well. In particular, Walker recalled round dances, where couples circled the ball room floor, which he found especially enjoyable. “Round dances then were very few and only young people who were particularly intimate could dance them together. Fortunately for me, there were several young ladies at the ball with whom I could so dance. I can never forget a “Deux Temps,” [a two-beat waltz] a lively dance, which I had with a young lady, the band playing “Dixie.” The state had then only recently seceded and “Dixie” was all the rage.”¹³

There would be no dancing for the cadets on Morris Island, however. Sams wrote that the Citadel Cadets (some forty in all) were selected by Major Stevens, and conveyed by steamer to an inlet on Morris Island, a small windswept barrier islet on the southern tip of the harbor entrance. Once disembarked, Lt. N.W. Armstrong, a professor of mathematics and military engineering at the college, was charged with inspecting the ground and selecting a proper position for the four artillery pieces. A suitable position located, Armstrong devised a plan for the emplacement, and work was immediately begun. “No Palmetto logs were available [the soft wood of local Palmetto trees], but sand rose in billows on every side, and eager hands soon filled the bags with sand and placed in position as planned.” In a few days a suitable breastwork had been constructed and the artillery pieces positioned to command the channel. The cadets were quartered in a home owned by the Loganetts, sentinels placed, and the position carefully guarded. According to Sams, over the next few days “rumors filled the air,” and “more than once the “Long Roll” sounded,” but these all proved false alarms.¹⁴ Above the works a red palmetto flag was flown, reportedly created by a local flag maker.

Meanwhile, out at sea the Star of the West had made good time, arriving off Charleston harbor late at night, not having been spotted. Lt. Charles R. Woods of the 9^th US Infantry would later report: “On Tuesday afternoon, 8th instant, arms and ammunition were issued to all the men. About midnight same evening we arrived off Charleston Harbor, and remained groping in the dark until nearly day, when we discovered the light on Fort Sumter, which told us where we were. The other coast light marking the approaches to the harbor had been extinguished, and the outer buoy marking the channel across the bar gone.”

The ship dimmed its onboard lights and bobbed on the tide until early dawn, when light was deemed fair enough to proceed. Woods continues: “As soon as we had light enough we crossed the bar, and steamed up the main ship channel. This was on the first of the ebb tide, the steamer ahead of us firing rockets and burning lights as she went up. We proceeded without interruption until we arrived within one and three-quarter miles of Forts Sumter and Moultrie—they being apparently equidistant.”¹⁵

On Morris Island, the cadets rose early and assumed their normal duties. All were aware of the Federal vessel’s approach, but its precise whereabouts remained unknown. Cadet Sams tells us that, “While I never saw the orders issued to Major Stevens, the Cadets understood that we were to stop any suspicious vessel trying to pass our Fort, first by firing a warning shot in front of her prow, which, if not heeded, must be followed by solid shot fired into her, but stop her we must.”

As Lt. Woods has already noted, however, at first light the Star of the West was already on the move, and just as quickly she was spotted in the channel. “Just about daybreak of January 9^th,” Sergeant Welch reported, “the guard boat spotted the “Star of the West,” and gave the signal.”¹⁶ That signal was noticed by Cadet William Simpkins, who then manned the cadet’s small parapet on Morris Island.

Years later Sams still recalled the moment with remarkable clarity. “It was early in the morning of July 9^th 1861,” he recounts, “a beautiful morning, that he [Simpkins] first saw the masts of a ship as coming forward she was warping her way into the channel leading in front of Morris Island and by our fort to Fort Sumter. At once he called the Sergeant of the Guard and reported her appearance and approach. The “Long Roll” was sounded, our line formed. The sentinels on the beach were ordered in.” Welch, on duty with the Zouave Cadets recalled, “the men immediately took their positions – the Citadel Cadets at the guns; the Zouave Cadets and German Riflemen just in their rear as an Infantry support.”

“In the meantime,” Sams continues, “the body of the ship could be seen rising above the horizon as nearer she drew. Cadet G. E. Haynesworth of Sumter was at the lanyard of gun No. 1; S. B. Pickens of Pendleton guarded the lanyard of gun No. 2. Major P. F. Stevens was in direct command. She was drawing nearer now under a full head of steam. The sun had now risen revealing soldiers and sailors as they crowded her decks and looked questionly [sic] at our little fort. It was a striking picture still painted brightly on my memory. Still nearer she drew. Major Stevens was on the parapet, the lanyards taught, every eye expectant…The “Star of the West” was now nearly in front of us and quite near.” The cadets were well trained in the use of their pieces, and at that distance the Federal ship was in definite peril. “At last the command rang out ‘Fire.’ G. E. Haynesworth pulled the lanyard. The solid shot, true to aim, sped in front of the prow of the ‘Star of the West.’”¹⁷ The singular shot echoed over the harbor like a clap of thunder. A moment later, Pickens was ordered to fire gun number two.

On board the Star of the West, Lt. Woods and company were about two miles from Fort Moultrie when he recalled, “a masked battery on Morris Island, where there was a red Palmetto flag flying, opened fire upon us – distance about five eighths of a mile.” Contrary to Sams’s recollection, the Federal troops remained below decks at the time, although many of the ship’s crew were on deck. Woods continues, “we had the American flag flying at our flag-staff at the time and soon after the first shot, hoisted a large American ensign at the fore. We continued on under fire of the battery for over ten minutes, several of the shots going clear over us.”¹⁸

The artillery fire became general, each piece firing in turn. Citadel Cadet Walker, had previously been ordered to Sullivan’s Island “to drill the fresh troops of Gregg’s regiment,” he later wrote. “The Company was sent to the East end of the Island and there was a Battery of Light Artillery…I was on Sullivan’s Island when the Star of the West attempted to enter the harbor. Our manoeuvers [sic] were very amusing. All the troops hurried out and lined up on the beach, while the guns of Fort Sumter, just across the narrow harbor were run out ready to fire. If they had opened what would have become of us?”¹⁹

Indeed, Major Anderson was then standing upon Fort Sumter’s ramparts, a curious observer to the action below. When Haynesworth pulled the lanyard for the first shot, as a sensible precaution – having no idea what was occurring – Anderson immediately ordered the fort’s guns run out. Harper’s Weekly captures the scene. “It must be remembered that communication had been cut off between Fort Sumter and the main land, and that Major Anderson knew nothing of the intention of sending him supplies and re-enforcements. When, therefore, the Star of the West hove in sight of his battlements, she was to him merely a merchant steamer entering Charleston Harbor, and having no special claim on his protection. His orders were strictly to act upon the defensive; but all the little garrison of the fort were on the alert, and he himself stood, glass in hand, upon the ramparts.”²⁰ Thus did the fort’s massive guns lay silent, and Cadet Walker and his mates on the beach avoid being blown rather unpleasantly to smithereens.

Meanwhile, back in the Star of the West, the situation was becoming increasingly unsettling. Lt. Woods tells us that, “We kept on, still under the fire of the battery, most of the balls passing over us, one just missing the machinery, another striking burt [sic] a few feet from the rudder, while a ricochet struck us in the fore-chains, about two feet above the water line, and just below where the man was throwing the lead. The American flag was flying at Fort Sumter, but we saw no flag at Fort Moultrie, and there were no guns fired from either of these fortifications.”²¹

John M’Gowan, Captain of the Star of the West, describes the ongoing action. “One shot just passed clear of the pilot-house, another passed between the smoke-stack and walking-beams of the engine, another struck the ship just abaft the fore-rigging and stove in the planking, while another came within an ace of carrying away the rudder. At the same time there was a movement of two steamers from near Fort Moultrie, one of them towing a schooner (I presume an armed schooner) with the intention of cutting us off. Our position now became rather critical, as we had to approach Fort Moultrie to within three quarters of a mile before we could keep away for Fort Sumter. A steamer approaching us with an armed schooner in tow, and the battery on the island firing at us all the time, and having no cannon to defend ourselves from the attack of the vessels, we concluded that, to avoid certain destruction or capture, we would endeavor to get to sea. Consequently, we wore round and steered down the channel, the battery firing upon us until the shot fell short. As it was now strong ebb tide, and the water having fallen some three feet, we proceeded with caution, and crossed the Bar safely at 8:50 A.M., and continued on our course for this port [New York Harbor], where we arrived this morning, after a boisterous passage. A steamer from Charleston followed us for about three hours, watching our movements.”²²

Sergeant Welch, watching the action from behind the cadet artillery, recalled the scene, as the Star of the West turned. “The vessel paid no attention to the first shots; then slowed down; turned; and put out to sea. Several shots were fired by Fort Moultrie, and Sumter ran out her guns, but, fortunately for us, did not use them.”²³ Cadet Sams also recorded the scene: “her prow was turned and she went back from whence she came to report a failure. She was beautiful still even as she retreated. The rays of the early morning sun made brighter still the beautiful ship decked from stem to stern; from waterline to topmost mast as in holiday attire.”²⁴

The cadets remained on Morris Island for a short period, and Cadet Walker, whom it can be recalled had been stationed on Sullivan’s Island during the recent action, sought immediate reassignment. “The first time I could catch Maj. Stevens, I got transferred to Morris Island,” he later wrote. “The cadets were quartered in three small rooms of a house near the battery. My room had about twenty in it,” the room filled with thick straw for bedding. The immediate drama having now passed, and no one having been injured during the ruckus, they returned to their usual antics. “Our friends in town kept us supplied with food, etc.,” Walker explains. “Among which was a two gallon Demijohn of the “Oh be Joyful” which was carefully hidden under the straw. When the order came, unexpectedly to return to the city it was about half full.” The cadets, not wanting to leave the jug behind, rushed to polish it off before departing. “On the way to the boat,” Walker recalled, “the march of many of us was rather unsteady.”²⁵

Nevertheless, shots had been fired by troops of South Carolina at a known Federal supply ship flying the Stars and Stripes, and news of the first shots swept across the country like a bolt of lightning. ‘“The war has begun in earnest,” wrote a correspondent from aboard the Star of the West. ‘The shots were fired by the Citadel Cadets under the command of Major Stephens [sic], who has thus had the honor, which he so much coveted, of opening the impending conflict.”’²⁶ The news was greeted joyously across much of the South, war, no longer a possibility, but a reality.

The Macon Telegraph, Macon, Georgia, ran this headline story on January 10, while incorrectly assuming the Star of the West had been sunk.

Given the facts of the incident, a credible argument can be made that the shots fired by the cadets on January 9 represented the first act of the American Civil War. Indeed, many reasonable people at the time – both North and South – believed it to be true. The Federal government, fearful of another failed attempt at reinforcement, fidgeted away, impotent. The later action in Charleston Harbor of April 12 under General Beauregard, exceeded those of the 9^th in volume only, hardly in consequence. For decades the pressure had been building across the country, forcing increasingly intractable stances, and where judgement remains a stranger, actions often become reflexive. The firing upon Fort Sumter became virtually inevitable therefore, given the arrangement of chess pieces post January 9. On one side of the chess board, Major Anderson had been ordered to defend a position he had no capacity to defend, undermanned and under-provisioned as he was. On the other side, the newly minted independent state of South Carolina (whatever it might legally have been) was now duty bound by both honor and practicality to remove all vestiges of Federal forces from within its boundaries. So, the events that followed loom up to us today almost like an equation in physics, practically a fait accompli. For the die had been cast on January 9, 1861, and regrettably, its name was war.

Epilogue

Major P.F. Stevens, fourth Superintendent of The Citadel, was in command of the cadets on Morris Island on January 9, and was soon commissioned into the Confederate service. He commanded the Holcombe Legion at the Battles of Rappahannock Station, Second Bull Run, South Mountain, and lastly Antietam, where he was wounded. Deeply religious, he resigned his commission and was ordained a minister in the Protestant Episcopal Church. Stevens left the church when white leaders refused to allow black members to decide how their own parishes would operate, and joined the Reformed Episcopal Church. Cambridge University writes of Stevens, “his career provides a compelling case study of a white clergyman who evolved from a traditional Southerner and zealous Confederate soldier to an advocate for Black communicants in the church.”²⁷ Ultimately, he became a professor of mathematics at Claflin College, one of the few black colleges in South Carolina at the time. Stevens died in 1910.

C. Irvine Walker, like his fellow cadets, was commissioned into the Confederate service soon after the Star of the West incident. He rose to the rank of Lt. Colonel and commanded the 10^th South Carolina Infantry until surrender. He was wounded during the Atlanta Campaign, and later at Kingston, N.C. He followed General John B. Gordon as Commander of the United Confederate Veterans, and sat on the Board of Visitors of the post-war Citadel. He died in 1927.

Samuel Bonneau (S.B.) Pickens was commissioned into the Confederate service on April 9, 1861. He succeeded to command of the 12^th Alabama Infantry at Turner’s Gap, Maryland, where he was shot through the lungs, and carried from the field. He returned to action, and was wounded again at the battles of Chancellorsville, Spotsylvania C.H., and Winchester. He commanded the 5^th Alabama Regiment at Gettysburg. After recuperation, he remained with the regiment, and took part in the surrender at Appomattox C.H. After the war, he worked as an agent for the railroad until his death in 1891.

Robert Oswald Sams was appointed assistant professor at the Arsenal Academy in South Carolina in 1862, and served in that capacity until the end of the war. He married in 1864, and he and his wife had two sons and eight daughters. He lived in Gaffney S.C., and died in 1930. Sams is best remembered as an outstanding educator.

Stephen Elliott Welch served in the Zouave Cadets of the Hampton Legion throughout the war, and is well-known for the account of his experiences in his book, Hampton Legion.

Big Red, the battle ensign that flew over the cadet works, was lost after the action, and somehow wound up in the hands of Private John Baker, a Civil War veteran from Iowa. He donated the flag to the state, where it remained in storage until recent discovery. In 2010 it was graciously returned to The Citadel Alumni Association.

George E. Haynesworth was commissioned a second lieutenant in the artillery after graduation. Post Civil War, Haynesworth practiced as a lawyer and magistrate in Sumter, S.C. He was accidentally shot by a rowdy citizen who had been removed from the street into his office in December of 1887, and died of his wound soon thereafter.

The Citadel was occupied by Federal forces after the Civil War. They controlled the school until 1882, at which time the college reopened. In 1922 the school moved from Marion Square to an expansive location bordering the Ashley River. Today The Citadel is a leading educational institution in the American South, offering an array of cutting edge programs, including cyber security, engineering, intelligence analysis, STEM Education, and international politics, among others.

After the incident in Charleston Harbor, the Star of the West was later captured by Confederates and utilized for a range of purposes. The sidewheeler was ultimately scuttled in 1863 during the siege of Vicksburg.

Due to natural erosion and channel wash, today Morris Island has withered from its previous size to 840 acres which are now under preservation. It can only be reached by boat, but is enjoyed by many in that capacity for its pristine condition and wildlife. The location of the cadet battery is now underwater.

The gradually vanishing sands of Morris Island serve as an apt metaphor – both literally and figuratively – for the American public’s documented disinterest and declining appreciation of its own history. It may be well therefore, to occasionally take a moment, or simply lift a glass, in memory of all those who have come before us, lest they be forgotten entirely.