FORT SUMTER

A Ball at Sunrise

MARCH 8

EARLY ON THE MORNING OF FRIDAY, MARCH 8, CONFEDERATE GUNS began firing from Fort Moultrie on Sullivan’s Island, and from Cummings Point on Morris. This in itself was not unusual. The Confederate gunners were constantly firing off blank charges for no apparent purpose other than practice or perhaps to intimidate the men at Sumter. During Friday’s demonstration the first three shots were indeed blanks, fired from Moultrie, followed by two more blank discharges from Cummings Point. A third shot from Cummings Point was a surprise.

An actual cannonball came tearing through the air and struck the water about thirty yards from Sumter. The ball ricocheted twice, then slammed into the rubble foundation of Sumter’s wharf. Bits of masonry rocketed into the sky. The ball penetrated four inches.

The impact astounded a burly German-born soldier on guard at the fort’s main gate, at the end of the wharf. He quickly recovered and slammed the gate shut. The fort came alive. The long roll was beaten. Sumter’s gunnery squads ran to their stations. “Our men were ready,” wrote Asst. Surgeon Crawford in his journal, “and only awaited the signal to begin.”

Major Anderson and a couple of other officers were on the parapet watching the opposing batteries through their spyglasses. It was immediately obvious that the Confederates manning those guns were even more astonished than the men at Sumter. And terrified. The chivalry bolted, red sashes flying, sabers clanking, as they tried to get as far away from their own guns as possible, as quickly as possible, before Sumter returned fire. “Negroes left their spades,” Crawford saw, “men of war rushed madly, and in a twinkling there was no human form to be seen on the beach.” Only the horses remained in place, standing quietly as the sea gently washed the shore.

The shot was so clearly an accident that Anderson withheld fire. “The Major laughed, the officers laughed, everybody laughed,” wrote Crawford, “and instead of taking to bombs we took to breakfast.”

But Anderson did want an apology. None came—at least not immediately. Anderson was preparing to send two officers to Cummings Point to demand an explanation, when at ten forty-five A.M. a Confederate boat arrived bearing an officer holding a white flag. Crawford met him at the wharf and took him into the guard room, then sent for Anderson, who spoke with the emissary. “He apologized handsomely—that it was accidental—gun had been loaded sometime and recruits were drilling—very sorry and was much obliged to us for our forbearance—would have been over before but had to get authorized,” Crawford wrote. Seeking authorization took time because the Confederate headquarters on the island was a distance away, and the officer did not have a horse.

The emissary was Maj. Peter F. Stevens, in charge of the Cummings Point batteries. He was also the Citadel instructor whose cadets had fired on the Star of the West, a fact that did not endear him to the Sumter men.

Anderson was civil. He told Stevens that “it must be obvious to all by this time” that he was anxious to avoid a collision.

Stevens said, “I am sure, Sir, this last act of yours would prove it. You might have fired, and I am sure no one could have blamed you for firing. We are certainly very much obliged to you for your forbearance.”

Again, forbearance: Captain Doubleday, for one, had wanted to fire back at the Cummings Point battery. He was tired of being patient and apparently was not alone. “One and all,” he wrote, “desired to fight it out as soon as possible.”

As Stevens prepared to leave, he told Anderson, “I hope Major this may be the last shot, although I doubt it.” Stevens then asked—“hesitatingly,” according to Crawford—whether the errant cannonball had hit the fort. Anderson, apparently unwilling to give him any satisfaction, told him no, that it had gone beyond the fort, into the water.

But later, in a letter to a brother, Crawford wrote: “By the way, it was a good shot and only required a little elevation to accomplish its object, i.e.: our main gate.”