This day in Charleston
2 entries · 1861–1864
Governor Francis W. Pickens sent formal demand for the surrender of Fort Sumter. Major Anderson refused, and proposed instead that both sides refer the question to Washington. The demand and the refusal were published in the Charleston papers within days; no record of the exchange was ever found in the War Department files.
Official Records, Series I, Vol. 1
Battery Cumming opened on Charleston at 3.35 in the afternoon with a light rifled gun and fired at long intervals until 9.58 at night — eighty-eight rounds. Lieutenant Kemper and thirty-eight artillerymen had relieved the Fort Sumter detail the night before. Only three monitors could be counted off the bar.
Journal of Operations in Charleston Harbor, OR I, 35, Pt. 1
Entries are dated from the War of the Rebellion official records, the naval official records and contemporary Charleston sources. Browse the whole year.