Confederate Veteran

Notes about the Reunion City

Volume 7, March 1899, page 102

Written to draw veterans to the 1899 reunion, this is a compressed statement of the Charleston the city wished remembered: Fort Moultrie in 1776, the ordinance of secession, the Star of the West, Fort Sumter, and the defense that held until Sherman came in behind it.

Signed “By Gen. C. I. Walker, of Charleston.”

Cite as

C. Irvine Walker, “Notes about the Reunion City,” Confederate Veteran 7, no. 3 (March 1899): 102.

The page in the scanned volume The whole volume at the Internet Archive

Published: March 1899
Volume: 7, no. 3
Pages: 102
Author: C. Irvine Walker

NOTES ABOUT THE REUNION CITY,

BY GEN, C. I. WALKER, OF CHARLESTON,

The Ninth Annual Reunion of the grand old heroes of the Confederacy, organized as the United Confederate Veterans, will convene in Charleston, S. C., May 10, 1899.

There is no spot in the South around which cluster so many historic memories as this beautiful city. Here

at the outbreak of the Revolution the British under Sir Peter Parker, with his strong fleet, met their first

memorable defeat from the guns of Fort Moultrie, then °

but a pile of palmetto logs. Here was passed the ordinance of secession, South Carolina thus leading her other sisters out of the Union and into our Confederacy. Here was fired, a few days aiter (January g, 1861), the first shot of the war, when the gallant cadets of the South Carolina Military Academy, worthy sons of South Carolina, turned back the Star of the West, coming in to the relief of the garrison of Fort Sumter, then held by Maj. Anderson and his United States forces, and here at daybreak on the morning of April 12 the Confederate artillery opened on Fort Sumter, and after two days' bombardment it struck its colors—the only time this fort ever lowered its flag to a foe.

At her doors the enemy thundered for years, but Sumter, Moultrie, Battery Wagner, and the other forts around the harbor kept them at bay, and only when Sherman, torch in hand, marched through South Carolina, taking Charleston defenses in the rear, and cutting her oft from her people, did it become necessary for her defenders, the begrimed warriors of the South, to turn their backs to the foe.

Rich with history. Revolutionary and Confederate, Charleston becomes the Mecca of the veterans, and all of them hope to make the pilgrimage to the shrine of a nation's glory. Her good people are preparing for the coming with busy arms, and a welcome in their hearts. Every arrangement is being made for the care of her thousands of anticipated guests.

The scan

What the scanner made of this page, and what it is in the printed original.

“a few days aiter (January g, 1861)” is “after (January 9, 1861)”; “cutting her oft” is “off.”

Editorial notes

Statements in this article that are wrong, doubtful, or worth setting beside another account. The article’s own text is left as printed.

“Here was fired, a few days after (January 9, 1861), the first shot of the war, when the gallant cadets … turned back the Star of the West”
This is the Charleston claim, and the Veteran printed it many times. It is defensible — the cadet battery on Morris Island did fire on a United States vessel on 9 January 1861 — but the magazine also printed the rival claims of the 8 March accidental shot from the Iron Battery (Volume 5, page 273) and of the signal shell of 12 April (Volume 9, page 156), and never reconciled them.
“after two days' bombardment it struck its colors—the only time this fort ever lowered its flag to a foe”
Fair. Sumter's flag came down on 13 April 1861; when the Confederates gave the fort up in February 1865 they withdrew without surrendering it.
“the British under Sir Peter Parker … met their first memorable defeat from the guns of Fort Moultrie”
28 June 1776, at the palmetto-log fort later named for William Moultrie. Correct.