The Battle Of Fort Sumter: The First Shots Of The American Civil War, by Wesley Moody

The author of this book, part of a series on critical moments in American history, takes a familiar subject and puts it in a worthwhile context. While the general outlines of the Battle of Fort Sumter, and how it is that the Civil War began in the harbor of the most rabidly rebellious city in the most rabidly rebellious state of the Confederacy, is a familiar one, the author manages to do a good job despite the familiarity of the subject matter as a whole. The author really takes this subject and gives it the depth that it deserves, for the importance of Fort Sumter goes far beyond the surprisingly bloodless and inaccurate cannon duel that took place between the fort’s small garrison of starving defenders, who only had a little bit of food left after a long siege and blockade that extended for months, and the far more numerous but generally unskilled forces nearly surrounding the small fort on an artificial island in the middle of Charleston harbor. The fact that there are still stories to be told from this familiar battle that are not widely familiar among readers of the Civil War makes this an even more enjoyable book than it would have been otherwise.

This particular book is about 200 pages of length, and it is divided into six chapters with other supplementary material. The book begins with a series introduction, list of figures, acknowledgements, and a timeline, which has a mistake that is hopefully corrected in future editions that shows Charleston as being captured by Union forces on February 18, 1861 (instead of 1865) and omits any mention of the numerous battles that were fought around Charleston in 1863 over James Island, the ship passage near Fort Sumter itself, and Battery Wagner (immortalized in the film Glory). The first chapter tackles the origins of the Civil War, a familiar story but necessary context here (1). After that the author discusses Charleston’s history as the capital of secession (2). After that, the author discusses Major Anderson’s bold move to take his soldiers from the indefensible Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter in the middle of Charleston harbor that provoked the crisis that started the Civil War (3). This is followed by a discussion of efforts by Confederates, and Confederate sympathizers in the cabinet of President Buchanan, to secure Fort Sumter peacefully for the Confederates (4). This is followed by a discussion of Lincoln’s role in approving a plan by a naval officer for the resupply of Fort Sumter that provoked the outbreak of war (5). The main narrative of the book then ends with a discussion of the fall of Fort Sumter after a lengthy bombardment (6), along with an epilogue that discusses its effects in making war inevitable. After the epilogue there are almost 60 pages of primary documents that are a worthwhile source of material about the Fort Sumter crisis for history students. The book then ends with a bibliography and an index.

There are at least a few aspects that make this book particularly enjoyable as a read. For one, the author manages to capture the flavor of the complexity of the political negotiations over Fort Sumter in the last days of Buchanan’s administration and the beginning of Lincoln’s, where Lincoln was still feeling his way and where his Secretary of State was conducting unauthorized diplomacy and pretending to be the real power behind the presidency, which was ultimately a serious mistake. The author includes numerous sidebars that discuss the lives and careers of those involved in the Fort Sumter crisis, including a great many of the officers that were under siege there. Humorously, the author even gets into a little bit of sports history by discussing the way that Abner Doubleday, the second-in-command of Fort Sumter, has been wrongly given credit for inventing the sport of baseball in order to hide the British origins of the sport (whose first recorded mention is in Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey, written in the early 1800s). The book is also notable for its hefty inclusion of primary documents, which makes this book worth reading alone, considering the value of these materials in understanding the thought process of those whose behavior ended up starting the bloodiest war (at least so far) in American history.