Kingsbury County independent. (DeSmet, Kingsbury County, S.D.) 1894-1929, 1911-04-21
Civil War Opened On Morning
of April IL, Half a
Century Ago.
GRAPHIC STORY OF EVENTS
James Barnes in Harper-s Weekly.

y. ~Ii-SsSSNSsi "a ~
a signal gun was fired that started the
greatest civil war of history. The an
swer to that signal brought INTO the
field 1000, 900 OF armed men. Follow
ing that shot came death, waste, and
destruction. The hand that pulled the
lanyard divided a country whose prog
ress in less than 100 years had been
the marvel of civilization. The price
of that charge of powder was billions
of dollars; its echo was the Inheritance
of a pension list OF $40, 600, 900 a year
by the patient taxpayers of q coming
| generation.
From November, 1860. to April Of 81,
the eyes and the thoughts OF the Whole
[ country had been conferred on q ittle
islet in this southern harbor, where a
company of some 80 men who wore the
uniform Of the United States army
were unfolding the dignity of then
! government under q stress ana straln
of uncertainty and inaction. The pre-
liminaries that brought on this long
continued crisis make lengthy chapters
N political history.
The weak old man whose admins
tration was drawing to a close at
| Washington, hoodwinked and ill-ad-
vised by subtle traitors II would-bc
peacc-makerS, was not the one to lead
the nation at such a time. There were
more tangible signs than drifting
straws to show the direction of the
wind, soon to become a typhoon or
reckless fury. There had been warn
ings enough-portents in plenty. on
November Z. just AFTER Lincoin's eiec-
ton, the flag Of secession had been
raised and saluted on a vessel lying at
the wharves OF this h~ot-headed city of
| Charleston. The bark James Gray.
owned by a strong believer in seces-
sion, had hoisted the Palmetto flag and
! fred q small cannon Is times, once for
each one of the slave-labor states,
men were drilling-forces gathering
talk was drifting into deeds. 1t was
an hour when a strong hand was need
ID to guide the ship of state, but Prest-
lent Buchanan lodged the issue, he
hoped to stave Off the responsibility;
he wished to leave the necessity for
| determined action to the man who
the following year. Abraham Lincoln
was to be heir to the deluge of woe
tina was to come.
At the end Of December, 1860, a re-
inarkable state of affairs existed. At
| The head of the army was a great ana
brave soldier who was now, alas! pre-
maturely in mis- dotage-General Win
field Scott. Chief counsellor to the
president, and really at the front OF
| military affairs as minister of war, was
a subtle schemer who foresaw what
was to come, and was making plans &C
cording. John b. Floyd, taking adj
vantage of the powers Of his office and
the ~pro-southern attitude of the ma
;ority of the cabinet. had scattered the
little standing army of the United
States to far-off posts or positions
where they would fall an easy prey to
organized attack. Throughout the
southern armories he had distributed
vast quantities or arms and munitions
Of war-free gifts to the states that
were soon to rise. Public speeches by
public men grew warmer and warmer
until thew famed into ~outspoken
treason. Strong and able men they
were-their conSCienceS satisfied OF the
~sacredness of the cause they advocated
and the righteousness of their course OF
! action.
/ The prologue must be continued to
explain why all eyes and thoughts were
centered on Charleston, and why the
crisis stretched on and on at its utmost
tension for five months or more, until
at last straining nerves and overbur-
dened hear the muscles could stand 1t
no longer, and the signal dashed.
Later in 1860 federal vessels had
been, without bloodshed, boarded and
taken in southern ports.
Iown at Charleston the newly elect
ed governor Of South Carolina, Francis
w. Pickens, had expressed in these
words his own convictions OF the sit
uation: There is no hope for the
union;" he had said, in so many
words, that so far as he was concerned
he intended to maintain the separate
independence of South Carolina. Here
lay the crux of the situation, first at
Fort Moultrie and afterward at Sum-
ter. The latter was soon to become, for
weeks and months, the axis of national
thought, the most spoken-of place In
the world at hat day and time. On The
18th of November Major Robert Ander-
son. of the First artillery, had been
ordered to Fort Moultrie to relieve
| Brevet Colonel John l.. Gardner, then
In command. anderson was a brave
man. a graduate of the Military acad-
envy of the class of 1925, a Kentuck ian
by birth, who had married a Georgian
woman, but whose high sense or n
to his government influenced him in
his duty throughout the trying days
that were TO follow. Anderson found
Charleston all athrob: a toucn-and-go
| feeling existed hat made h whole
| place as pregnant with danger as a
boiler filled with super-heated steam,
the salty valves stoppered at top notch.
At Fort Moultrie, on the south end OF
Sulliyan's island, was a garrison of W.
companies, comprising 81 enlisted men,
eight officers of the First regiment OF
artillery, the urgeon, the members of
the band, in all a total Of "a. In the
arsenal that was in Charleston proper
were stored, without any guard but a
Waterman, 1000 muskets and a num-
Der Of heavy guns. On a shoal in the
harbor, opposite o Moultrie, a little
over three miles distant from the city,
there had been building for 81 years a
brick and stone fortress that was st!!i
unfinished. At the time OF Anderson's
arrival workmen were employed In hur-
rying part of the work to completion.
Only rs guns OF the 146 which 1t was
capable OF mounting were On hand.
This was Fort Sumter. On a war foot
ing it's proper defense would require a
garrison OF $50 men.
All through November and early De-
cember Anderson and his command oc-
cupied the entirely vulnerable Fort
Moultrie that could ave been rushed
and carried at any time by the well
equipped forces OF state troops drilling
In the city OF Charleston, under the
command OF the southern man OF the
hour, B~eauregard, who had been COM
missioned a ~brigadier general by o
ernor Pickens. After careful survey
and the expenditure OF much labor Ma
jor Anderson saw the impossibility Of