Charleston - Fort Sumter

Fort Sumter

It’s only about a 2 hour drive from Savannah to Charleston. We arrived in plenty of time to take the 2:30 boat to visit Fort Sumter.  On December 20^th, 1860, South Carolina seceded from the Union. Six days later Major Robert Anderson moved his 85 man garrison into the still uncompleted Fort. The Fort had been built in the middle of the Charleston Harbor on an artificial island. It was strategically located, one mile from Fort Moultrie on one side of the harbor and one mile from Fort Johnson on the other, allowing the canons of the day (which could accurately shoot one mile) to control the harbor. 

Controlling the Harbor

On April 11, 1861 the first shots of the civil war were fired here as the confederate forces fired into the Fort for 34 hours straight. Major Anderson surrendered largely because he was out of food and water, for the fort was strong enough that no one was killed. The confederates took over the Fort. On April 7^th, 1863 nine armored Union vessels headed into the harbor in an attempt to retake the fort. Technology had changed when the rifled canon had been invested in 1863, far more accurate than simple cannon balls. Five Federal ships were disabled by the cannons. Having failed to take the Fort by ship, the Union army began firing shells every day for over 20 months. The walls of the Fort which once were 50 feet high were severely reduced and damaged, but during the entire time only 52 soldiers were killed. With the advance of General Sherman, the confederates abandoned the Fort to help General Lee in Virginia, surrendering the Fort on February 17^th, 1865. Today, as we visited the Fort, the walls are only about 1/3 of their original height and the center of the Fort in dominated by a black colored battery built in 1898 to defend the Harbor during the Spanish-American War. This battery served through World War II. The commentary while traveling to and from the island provided a lot of the history of Charleston and the Fort. That was supplemented by two brief ranger talks at the Fort. The first talk focused on how the technology of war changed during the civil war, not only rifled cannons, but ambulances, trench warfare, the red cross, and the roots of the Geneva convention occurred during this war. The second on the Union attempt to recapture the Fort. The Oak Plantation Campground is large, and well-kept as well as close to all the tourist sights, but once again the Wi-Fi is not very good. 

Cannon Placment