“Evacuation of Fort Sumter!”

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From the collections of PVMA • Digital image © Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Assoc. • Image use information


About this item

When Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated president in March, 1861, he faced a serious problem: South Carolina had seceded from the Union on December 20, 1860, the first state to do so. Fort Sumter stood on an island in the middle of the state’s Charleston harbor and was a visible symbol of federal authority. Lame-duck president James Buchanan felt that it was unconstitutional to coerce states to stay in the union (although he also felt secession was unconstitutional). As a result he did nothing when an unarmed supply vessel, the Star of the West, was fired upon by Confederate gunners. Consequently, the fort was short of supplies. This article was printed just days after the inaugural address when, on March 5, Major Robert Anderson, commander of Fort Sumter, sent the president a message saying he had only forty days-worth of supply. The dilemma of what to do about the fort consumed the president for weeks. At the end of March Lincoln decided, against his cabinet’s advise, to attempt to supply the fort and he sent the governor of South Carolina a note informing him. The governor had already been authorized to resist this by Confederate President Jefferson Davis. On April 12, before the ships could arrive, the governor authorized the first guns to fire upon the fort, starting the Civil War.

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Details

Item typePeriodicals
Newspaper
PublisherGreenfield Gazette and Courier
Date1861-03-18
PlaceGreenfield, Massachusetts; South Carolina
TopicMilitary, Wars, Battles
EraCivil War and Reconstruction, 1861–1877
EventAmerican Civil War. 1861–1865
MaterialPaper
Process/FormatPrinting
Dimension detailsProcess Material: printed paper, ink Height: 24.00 in Width: 2.50 in
Catalog #L02.120
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Greenfield Gazette and Courier. “Evacuation of Fort Sumter!.” March 18, 1861. Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, American Centuries. https://americancenturies.org/collection/l02-120/. Accessed on October 7, 2024.

Please note: Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.