One man. One word. by Warren Bull

One man. One word. by Warren Bull

Image of the flag being lowered at sunset at Fort Sumter by Taylor Wilcox on Upsplash

Late in 1860, Major Robert Anderson on the United States Army was named to command the three American forts in Charleston Harbor in South Carolina. His official orders were to strengthen the harbor’s defenses against a theoretical attack by France or Great Britain, but everybody knew that the most likely attacker would be the state of South Carolina. 

Secretary of War John B. Floyd was opposed to any interference in the “peculiar institution” of slavery. Shortly after the Civil War broke out, Floyd became a Confederate Brigadier General. His department was a center for graft and corruption. He spent much of his time sending arms to support states that would soon secede from the Union.

Floyd selected Anderson because Anderson was known to sympathize with the South. His wife, the daughter of a wealthy George rice planter, sold the slaves she inherited from her father and became rich. 

What the Secretary of War did not know was that the new commander took his oath to the nation seriously. Although he rarely mentioned it, Anderson had fought against Black Hawk in Illinois and the Seminole Indians in Florida. During the Mexican-American War, serving under General Scott, he took a bullet in his shoulder but continued to lead his outnumbered regiment for two more hours before he collapsed from the loss of blood. His father fought in the American Revolutionary War. 

Anderson’s letters to family and friends earlier in the year describe his personal struggle to decide which side of the impending crisis he would take. He was a close friend of Jefferson Davis and a classmate of Robert E. Lee. But he could not force himself to ignore the oath he took to the nation. 

From the start of his assignment, Anderson recognized that the local militia could easily overrun his small force. The garrison was so small that at times the wives of the servicemen had to fill in as sentries. For months, the Major pleaded for more men and arms. He wrote to Washington that his command was woefully unprepared for the conflict that was certain to come. Of the three forts in his command, only Fort Sumter, situated on a man-made island, was defendable because it was on a man-made island. Anderson asked for permission to move his men there immediately. His pleas were downplayed or ignored. 

On December 23, 1860, a letter arrived from the Secretary of War. It was the first time Floyd had responded personally to Anderson’s letters. Dated the day after South Carolina announced its secession from the United States, Floyd advised Anderson in two paragraphs that he should defend himself if attacked but he should not sacrifice his men “upon a mere point of honor.” He was not expected to make “a hopeless conflict in defense of these forts.” Floyd instructed Anderson, “If they are attacked by a force so superior that resistance would, in your judgment, be a useless waste of life, it will be your duty to yield to necessity, and make the best terms [of surrender] in your power. This will be the conduct of an honorable, brave and humane officer, and you will be fully justified in such action.”

Obviously, the intent of the letter was to allow Anderson to make a sham defense and turn everything over to the Confederacy with minimal loss of life.  The forts would be intact for use by the enemies of the United States.  

Floyd had misjudged Anderson badly. Anderson saw a way to remain true to his personal morality in a single word. He seized upon the word “forts” rather than “fort.” Because he was ordered to defend all forts, there was no problem with moving men and supplies from one fort to another. During the night of December 26, Anderson gave his men twenty minutes to transfer themselves and all military supplies to Fort Sumter. A few men left behind spiked the guns so they could not be fired, burned the gun carriages, and took down the flagpole so that nothing but the stars and stripes would ever fly from it.  

The next morning secessionist riflemen swarmed over the abandoned fort. By noon the garrison flag was raised over Fort Sumter — Anderson’s father had given him that flag. Although Floyd fumed and sent off a stinging message by telegraph, the defiant red, white, and blue flew in the air in Charleston Harbor.

The Confederates opened fire on Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861. Anderson 

surrendered the fort on April 13, 1861. That event made clear that the Confederacy

 was the aggressor in the Civil War. Firing on American troops enraged

large numbers of Americans of every political stripe who rushed to defend the

United States. A bloodless taking of the forts by swarming them with superior 

numbers of men would have been much less dramatic. How to respond would have

been uncertain. Anderson’s actions clarified the difference between the two sides 

and unified people who held widely varying views about states’ rights, slavery and 

other issues. 

One man and one word changed American history.