FORT SUMTER

Firewood

MARCH 26

AT FORT SUMTER, THE DAYS AND NIGHTS REMAINED COLD. A STORM was coming. “The sixth and last temporary building on the parade is being demolished for fuel,” chief engineer Foster reported on March 26. “Some lumber and one condemned gun carriage have already been burned.”

Outsiders tended to overlook these details. They saw only the heroism and gallantry of Anderson and his men, a classic David and Goliath story: the major and his little garrison—it was invariably described in the press as “little”—standing up to a far larger force that outnumbered them by at least twenty-five to one.

Anderson’s men saw it in starker terms. Details mattered. In a memorandum to Anderson about how to protect the fort against attack by infantry, Captain Doubleday identified the various points on the structure that would need a sentry, and recommended that one of the fort’s drums (it had five) be placed at the center of each flank of the fort to be beaten at the first sign of an attack. Captain Seymour closed his list of recommendations with this: “It would be well to arrange a privy, in a place of security.”

To Anderson’s nephew, R. C. Anderson, it was all very thrilling. His children felt likewise; his son proudly steered visitors to Anderson’s photograph, calling him “Uncle Robert Major.” (R.C. lived in Frankfort, Kentucky, home also to Mildred Ruffin, beloved daughter of fire-eater Edmund.) “Had I not a family to provide for and protect in these unsettled times,” nephew Anderson wrote, “I would long before this have been at your side or died in the attempt.” Never mind that the major had a family as well.

In another letter, this nephew revealed a heartfelt fear:

“I believe that if there is a calamity which, of all conceivable misfortunes would forever crush my spirits and overwhelm my hopes, it would be the news that ‘Fort Sumpter’ had been surrendered and that the miserable ensign of S.C. floated in the place of your glorious Stars and Stripes.”

Encouragingly, he added: “The announcement of your death—much as I love you—would not make me half so unhappy.”