The damage done by those first guns of the war, ‘the shots heard around the world,’ is shown in these faded photographs of April 16, 1861.
By five A. M. of April 12th the Confederate batteries were directing a converging fire on
Sumter.
The garrison did not immediately reply; it had been subsisting on half rations and on this particular morning made a breakfast off pork and damaged rice.
At seven it began to return the fire.
During the day the duel was unremitting.
The whole city poured out to witness the spectacle.
The
Battery, the fashionable promenade of
Charleston, was thronging with ladies in holiday attire.
Early on the next day the officers' quarters in
Sumter caught fire from some shells or hot shot.
Flames soon spread to the barracks.
So fierce was the conflagration that the magazine had to be closed.
The men threw themselves on the ground to avoid suffocation.
Then
Beauregard's terms of evacuation were accepted.
On Sunday, April 14th, with colors flying and drums beating,
Major Anderson and his little company marched out with a salute to the flag of fifty guns.
That day the whole
North was steeled to live up to the spirit of
Holmes' poem.
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The officers' quarters where the fire started |
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The shattered flagstaff (to the right) |
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