Of Note is an occasional series in which we share items that have caught our eye.
In April 1861, Dr. Edward S. Aldrich (1811–1880) sailed from New York to Charleston, South Carolina, to join the Confederate cause as a surgeon. The voyage soon led to unexpected peril when the ship was forced to anchor outside the harbor, and Aldrich witnessed an event that ultimately helped spark the Civil War – the battle for Fort Sumter. In a remarkable letter to his sister-in law Ellen Brown Anderson (shown above), Aldrich provides a rare firsthand account of the bombardment as it unfolded.
It was a time of increased tension between the North and the South. Following the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860, seven states seceded from the union, including South Carolina. Defending and resupplying the garrison at Fort Sumter was urgent, as it was one of the final forts held by the United States in the Confederacy. On April 12, Major Robert Anderson, commander of U.S. troops at Fort Sumter, received a warning: Confederate forces under General Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard would fire on the fort in one hour. Anderson refused to surrender and the battle for the fort began.
Upon arriving at the harbor, Aldrich was immensely disappointed when the ship’s captain denied him the “honor of participating” in the fight by refusing his request to disembark at nearby Morris Island, then controlled by the Confederacy. However, his desire for action did not go entirely unrequited when the passenger ship had a remarkably close encounter with the USRC Harriet Lane sent to resupply the garrison at Fort Sumter:
“Yesterday the Harriet Lane headed for us & fired a cannon across our bow for the ship to lay too. The captain obeyed the summons. The Lane steamed around us with all the men beat to quarters, with port holes open & brisling cannon, looking quite warlike & dangerous. This maneuver on the part of the officers evinced great coolness & courage to sail around an unarmed vessel instead of going to the assistance of their brethren.”
With contempt for the troops, Aldrich concluded that he “would have blown Miss Lane out of [the] water” had he been in command.
The day after his brush with the Harriet Lane, Aldrich witnessed the final hours of the battle and celebrated the Confederate victory:
“Nine o’clock today the fort is on fire from the shells of the batteries. Eleven o’clock the old once honored stars & stripes have disappeared by fire never again to waive [sic] over the ramparts of Fort Sumpter [sic]. The fort has been one dense smoke for hours still the lower tier of cannon flash away and the batteries pour in to her in rapid succession – At twelve the firing has ceased, and we can discern with the glass the confederate flag gaily floating from all the ships in the Harbor.”
The following morning, the passenger ship was allowed to dock and Aldrich saw that the fort was “deeply indented with hundreds of bullet holes.” He further learned how General Beauregard’s aide Louis T. Wigfall sailed in a small boat from Morris Island to Fort Sumter to demand Anderson’s “unconditional surrender.” He was uncertain of the terms of the agreement, only that Anderson and his soldiers were “prisoners in the Fort as rats caught in their own trap.” Unaware of the full impact of the moment he just witnessed, Aldrich concluded that he was “ready for duty” and signed the letter to his sister-in-law with love and affection. We can only wonder how he reacted when four years later, on April 14, 1865, Major Anderson once again raised the “honored stars & stripes” above Fort Sumter, an action that Aldrich so confidently asserted would never happen.
All are invited to read Aldrich’s remarkable eyewitness account of the monumental battle in the digitized letter now available online as part of the Manuscript Division’s Miscellaneous Manuscripts Collection.
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