Timeline, April 1861

War

Brigadier General P.G.T. Beauregard, in command of South Carolina and Confederate forces surrounding the Union garrison holding Fort Sumter, demands the surrender of the Union garrison holding Fort Sumter, a federal installation in the middle of South Carolina’s Charleston Harbor. Major Robert Anderson, the garrison’s commander, is a slave owner from Kentucky and at one time was Gen. Beauregard’s former artillery instructor at West Point. Major Anderson and his vastly outnumbered forces have held onto the fort for over 100 days with no relief or reinforcement from the Union, nor is any expected. If there is to be war, President Lincoln determined, then the first provocation must come from the South. On the morning of April 12, 1861, at 4:30 a.m., the command is given and Confederate gunners open fire on the fort. Major Anderson, waiting for daybreak, issues orders for his men to return fire. For the next thirty hours, Anderson’s troops fire 1000 rounds to the Confederate’s 4000.
By 2:30 p.m. the next day, the firing stops. General Beauregard no longer sees the U.S. flag flying above the brick rubble of the fort and believes Anderson, wishing to surrender, has struck his colors. In fact, a Confederate shell has knocked down the flagpole. Anderson, however, believes he has acted honorably and held the fort for as long as practical, and agrees to turn it over to the Confederates. After thirty hours of canon fire and 5000 shots, there is not one fatality on either side. It is a bloodless beginning to the bloodiest war ever fought by Americans. (New York Times Online, “Disunion”)


Abraham Lincoln, War President

With armed conflict now a reality, President Lincoln exercises his executive authority to wage war as Commander in Chief despite the fact that the out-of-session Congress has adopted no formal declaration of war. In one of the most controversial acts of his presidency, the president suspends the right of habeas corpus along a narrow stretch of railroad running through Maryland that connects Washington with the rest of the North. This stretch is vital for the transportation of troops to Washington. As Maryland citizens continued to rally to the Confederate cause (twenty thousand of them would serve in the Confederate army versus 35,000 for the Union), Lincoln fears acts of sabotage. He does however ask for retroactively approval of his actions as being necessary in a time of extreme emergency in a special session of Congress. The session is scheduled to begin on July 4, over ten weeks away. (Neely 5-11; McPherson 167)

Four More States Join the Confederacy

The attack on Fort Sumter prompted four more states—Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas—to leave the Union and join the Confederacy.