Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 11.
Reverend J. William Jones, Ed.

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‘ [503] round of all the pieces and batteries to be completed in thirty-two minutes, and then to begin again. The night before, when expecting to engage, Captain Cuthbert had notified me that his company requested of me to discharge the first cannon to be fired, which was their 64-pound Columbiad, loaded with shell. Of course I was highly gratified by the compliment, and delighted to perform the service—which I did. The shell struck the fort at the northeast angle of the parapet. By order of General Beauregard, made known the afternoon of the 11th, the attack was to be commenced by the first shot at the fort being fired by the Palmetto Guard, and from the iron battery. In accepting and acting upon this highly appreciated compliment, that company had made me its instrument,’ &c.

The above, as written at that very time, would fully establish the fact that the first shot was fired by Edmund Ruffin, and it will be observed that the signal shot which he refers to at Fort Johnson at 4:30 A. M., is the same that S. D. Lee claims as the first shot at Fort Sumter at the same time (4:30 A. M.). Now the two might easily be confounded, and to prove that the one from the iron battery, fired by Edmund Ruffin, was actually the first gun on Fort Sumter, I will give comments of the press of that date.

The Charleston Courier said: ‘The venerable Edmund Ruffin, who as soon as it was known a battle was inevitable, hastened over to Morris Island, and was elected a member of the Palmetto Guard, fired the first gun from Stevens's iron battery. All honor to the chivalric Virginian! May he live many years to wear the fadeless wreath that honor placed upon his brow on our glorious Friday!’

From the Charleston correspondent of New York Tribune.—

‘The first shot from Stevens's battery was fired by the venerable Edmund Ruffin, of Virginia. That ball will do more for the cause of secession in the Old Dominion than volumes of stump speeches.’

The Charleston Mercury says the first gun fired from the iron battery off Cummings's Point was discharged by the venerable Edmund Ruffin. He subsequently shot from all the guns and mortars used during the action.

A Mobile paper had the following:

‘A Sublime Spectacle.—The mother of the Gracchi, when asked for her jewels, pointed to her children and said, “There they are.” With the same propriety can the ‘Mother of States’ point to her ’