Robert Anderson ( Civil War ) Robert Anderson . ( June 14 , 1805 – October 26 , 1871 ) was an American Civil War hero who defied the Confederacy and upheld Union honor in the first battle of the war at Fort Sumter in April 1861 . The Confederates bombarded it and forced its surrender to start the war . After Sumter fell , Anderson was promoted to brigadier general and given command of Union forces in Kentucky , but was removed late in 1861 and reassigned to Rhode Island , before retiring from military service in 1863 . Early life . Robert Anderson was born in " Soldier ' s Retreat , " near Louisville , Kentucky . He graduated from the United States Military Academy ( West Point ) in 1825 and received a commission as a second lieutenant in the 2nd Regiment of Artillery . He served in the Black Hawk War of 1832 as a colonel of Illinois volunteers , where he had the distinction of twice mustering Abraham Lincoln in and out of army service . Returning to the Army as a first lieutenant in 1833 , he served in the Second Seminole War as an assistant adjutant general on the staff of Winfield Scott , and was promoted to captain in October 1841 . In the Mexican - American War , he was severely wounded at Molino del Rey , for which he received a brevet promotion to major . He eventually received a permanent promotion to major of the 1st Regiment of Artillery in the Regular Army on October 5 , 1857 . He was the author of " Instruction for Field Artillery , Horse and Foot " in 1839 . Civil War . Fort Sumter . When South Carolina seceded In December 1860 , Major Anderson , a pro - slavery , former slave - owner from Kentucky , remained loyal to the Union . He was the commanding officer of United States Army forces in Charleston , South Carolina , the last remaining important Union post in the Confederacy . Acting without orders , he moved his small garrison from Fort Moultrie , which was indefensible , to the more modern , more defensible , Fort Sumter in the middle of Charleston Harbor . South Carolina leaders cried betrayal , while the North celebrated with enormous excitement at this show of defiance against secessionism . In February 1861 the Confederate States of America was formed and took charge . Jefferson Davis , the Confederate President , ordered the fort be captured . The artillery attack was commanded by Brig . Gen . P . G . T . Beauregard , who had been Anderson ' s student at West Point . The attack began April 12 , 1861 , and continued until Anderson , badly outnumbered and outgunned , surrendered the fort on April 14 . The battle began the American Civil War . No one was killed in the battle on either side , but one Union soldier was killed and one mortally wounded during a 50 - gun salute . National hero . Robert Anderson ' s actions in defense of American nationalism made him an immediate national hero . He was promoted to brigadier general , effective May 15 . Anderson took the fort ' s 33 - star flag with him to New York City , where he participated in a Union Square patriotic rally that was the largest public gathering in North America up to that time . Symbolism of the American flag . The modern meaning of the American flag , according to Adam Goodheart ( 2011 ) , was forged by Anderson ' s stand at Ft Sumter . During the war the flag was used throughout the North to symbolize American nationalism and rejection of secessionism . Goodheart explains the flag was transformed into a sacred symbol of patriotism : Civil War roles . Anderson then went on a highly successful recruiting tour of the North . His next assignment placed him in another sensitive political position , commander of the Department of Kentucky ( subsequently renamed the Department of the Cumberland ) , in a border state that had officially declared neutrality between the warring parties . He served in that position from May 28 , 1861 . Historians commonly attribute failing health as the reason for his relinquishment of command to Brig . Gen . William T . Sherman , on October 7 , 1861 . But a letter from Joshua Fry Speed , Lincoln ' s close friend , suggests Lincoln ' s preference for Anderson ' s removal . Speed met with Anderson and found him reluctant to implement Lincoln ' s wishes to distribute rifles to Unionists in Kentucky . Anderson , Speed wrote to Lincoln on October 8 , " seemed grieved that [ he ] had to surrender his command . . . [ but ] agreed that it was necessary and gracefully yielded . " In 1862 Anderson was elected an honorary member of the New York Society of the Cincinnati . Anderson ' s nephew , Ambassador Larz Anderson , was highly active in the Society . General Anderson ' s last assignment of his military career was as commanding officer of Fort Adams in Newport , Rhode Island , in August 1863 . By coincidence , Fort Adams had been General Beauregard ' s first assignment after his graduation from West Point . Anderson officially retired from the Army on October 27 , 1863 , and saw no further active service . Later life . After Robert E . Lee ' s surrender at Appomattox and the effective conclusion of the war , Anderson returned to Charleston in the uniform of a brevet major general ( ranking as of February 3 , 1865 ) and , four years after lowering the 33 - star flag in surrender , raised it in triumph over the recaptured but badly battered Fort Sumter during ceremonies there on April 14 , 1865 , mere hours before Lincoln ' s assassination . In 1869 , he discussed the future of the U . S . Army with the " father of the United States Military Academy , " Major General Sylvanus Thayer . An outcome of that visit was establishment of the Military Academy ' s Association of Graduates ( AoG ) . Anderson died in Nice , France , and is interred at West Point Cemetery . Family . Anderson ' s mother Sarah Marshall was first cousin to Chief Justice John Marshall . Anderson ' s brother , Charles Anderson , served as Governor of Ohio from 1865 to 1866 . Another brother , William Marshall Anderson , was a Western explorer and Ohio attorney . A zealous Catholic and Confederate sympathizer , he briefly moved to Mexico during the reign of Emperor Maximilian in hopes of establishing a Confederate colony there . W . Marshall Anderson ' s son , Thomas M . Anderson , was a brigadier general who fought in the Spanish - American War and Philippine - American War .