Confederate Guns Open Fire on Fort Sumter
A 34-hour bombardment forces the Union garrison to surrender and starts the war
Quick facts
- Location
- Charleston Harbor, South Carolina
- Union commander
- Major Robert Anderson
- Confederate commander
- General P.G.T. Beauregard
- Result
- Confederate victory; fort surrendered April 13
What happened
Major Robert Anderson had moved his small U.S. Army garrison from the indefensible Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter, an island fortification in Charleston Harbor, in December 1860. Confederate authorities demanded Anderson evacuate; when he refused, stating only that he would eventually be starved out, General P.G.T. Beauregard ordered his batteries to open fire at 4:30 a.m. on April 12, 1861. Confederate guns bombarded the fort for 34 hours. Anderson's garrison, undersupplied and outgunned, returned fire but caused no Confederate casualties, and on April 13 Anderson agreed to surrender. His men were allowed to fire a 100-gun salute to their flag before boarding a ship north; the salute killed one Union soldier, the war's first fatality.
Why it matters
The attack forced Lincoln's hand: he called for 75,000 volunteers to suppress what he called an insurrection, and that call drove four more states, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina, to secede rather than supply troops against fellow Southerners. What had been a standoff became open war.
How we know
The National Park Service's account of the battle and the American Battlefield Trust's history both draw on Anderson's and Beauregard's official reports and the correspondence exchanged before the bombardment.
Sources
- National Park Service. Battle of Fort Sumter, April 1861 · Reputable sourcenps.gov · The domain "nps.gov" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- American Battlefield Trust. Fort Sumter Battle Facts and Summary · Reputable sourcebattlefields.org · The domain "battlefields.org" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
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