In a recent discussion prompted by Ron Paul's civil war revisionism, the topic of Fort Sumter arose.

I admit to previously having known almost nothing about Fort Sumter -- it was always a bit of a mystery. For some odd reason, the "War of Northern Aggression" was started by an attack from the South, who is frequently portrayed as a helpless victim of "Northern" (Federal, really) economic imposition.

(Seems Southerners had to pay tariffs like everyone else, and the poor slave-holders suffered horribly when Northerners refused to return their escaped "property" for further beatings. Never mind how the "property" felt about the matter. Sorry, but it's hard for me to be pretend to be neutral on that particular point.)

My suspicions were further aroused by some of the undoubtedly-popular explanations being offered. For example:

On the South firing the first shot. That would have been at Fort Sumter, in South Carolina, which had seceded, and Lincoln sent a fleet to re-supply it. Do you think he just wanted to use it for vacations at the beach?

And:

... the fact that South Carolina "started the fighting" was the result of deliberate political maneuvering by the Union, and not a matter of agression per-se on the part of the South against the Union, and not particularly relevant to this historical sequence of events outside of immediate propaganda value

And elsewhere:

Attempts by the Confederate government to settle its differences with the Union were spurned by Lincoln, and the Confederacy felt it could no longer tolerate the presense of a foreign force in its territory. Believing a conflict to be inevitable, Lincoln ingeniously devised a plan that would cause the Confederates to fire the first shot and thus, he hoped, inspire the states that had not yet seceded to unite in the effort to restore the Union.

Explanations like these set off my alarm bells.

For one, I'm always reflexively suspicious of explanations which sound to me like a bratty kid in the backseat saying: "But she made me punch her!" -- as if his little sister (or Lincoln) had irresistible powers of mind control.

There are cases where it's moral to fire the first shot -- such as when powerful forces are clearly amassed for an unprovoked attack (e.g. the Cuban missile crises, where Castro received atomic weapons, or Israel's first strike on the forces arrayed at his border) -- but Fort Sumter was no such case. When some narrative tries to turn an aggressor into a victim, something is wrong.

Second, the justifications themselves make no internal sense. If the attack on Sumter had no value other than "propaganda" (now) then why on earth would the South have undertaken it? Was their only desire to look bad in posterity? If the South was the disadvantaged, oppressed, under-armed, non-aggressive group they're portrayed as, they why would they take an action which they knew would provoke a war which (in that narrative) they had no chance of winning?

These questions bothered me, so I resolved to learn what I could. And what I learned was extremely interesting, so I'm writing it down here in the hope you'll enjoy it as well.

Backstory: Who Supplied Sumter?

Sumter was a Federal fort -- the completely-legal property of the US Federal government -- not the state of South Carolina, as explained here. Thus the Federal government was well within its rights to do pretty much anything it wanted in the Fort itself.

Second, and utterly contrary to the narrative above which implied that the South only contemplated seizing Sumter after some action by the North, the Confederacy had signaled its intentions to seize all Federal forts even before the succession was declared. So all narratives which imply that they decided to do so only in response to some "trick" by Lincoln are patently false. The Confederacy was threating President Buchanan with the exact same course of action well before Lincoln took office.

Next: Sumter was no major threat to the South. It was located in Charleston Harbor, not directly connected to land (and thus of no use for land attack) and was surrounded on all sides by other forts which were soon held by the Confederacy. So much for the arguments about how the South was left with no answer except to neutralize the "threat" posed by it's existence.

And, also contrary to the comments above, on "April 6th, Lincoln [sent] a special messenger to Gov. Pickens of South Carolina, informing him of the mission of the relief expedition, and promising him that if no resistence is offered, no troops, arms or ammunition would be moved into the fort." So also no reason to think that Lincoln's move to resupply the fort was anything but symbolic.

In fact, the reason that Sumter was well-supplied in the first place actually comes down to a fascinating story of pro-Southern duplicity and, if I may use an old-fashioned word, betrayal. If there was a sneaky, dishonest "trick" here, it had nothing to do with Lincoln. Allow me to explain...

Initially, there were only four Federal forts in the South. And as this account from Abner Doubleday (popularizer of baseball) recounts, not long before the South made their intentions publicly known, John Floyd, the Federal Secretary of War, began acting a bit, uh peculiarly:

We were commanded by a Northern man of advanced age, Colonel John L. Gardner, who had been wounded in the war of 1812 and had served with credit in Florida and Mexico. November 15th, 1860, Mr. Floyd, the Secretary of War, relieved him and put in command Major Robert Anderson of Kentucky, who was a regular officer....

Soon after his arrival, which took place on the 21st of November ' Anderson wanted the sand removed from the walls of Moultrie, and urged that it be done. Suddenly the Secretary of War seemed to adopt this view. He pretended there was danger of war with England, with reference to Mexico, which was absurd; and under this pretext was seized with a sudden zeal to put the harbor of Charleston in condition-to be turned over to the Confederate forces. He appropriated $150,000 for Moultrie and $80,000 to finish Sumter. There was not much to be made out of Fort Moultrie, with all our efforts, because it was hardly defensible...

We could get no additional ammunition, but Colonel Gardner had managed to procure a six months' supply of food from the North before the trouble came. The Secretary of War would not let us have a man in the way of reinforcement, the plea being that reinforcements would irritate the people.

As Doubleday relates, Floyd, though acting as the "Union" Secretary of War, was actually attempting to fortify Moultrie and Sumter in the expectation that he would be able to hand it over to the South! So if the Forts were in any way threatening or well-defensible, it was, ironically, John Floyd who made the ultimate decision to put them into such a condition!

As another account also notes:

It seems that Floyd had also been contacted by Thomas Drayton of South Carolina, who wanted 10,000 smoothbore muskets. Floyd was fully aware that Drayton wanted them for the South Carolina militia to arm in case of Abraham Lincoln's election. Floyd ordered armaments delivered to the South in October, with the bill going to a South Carolina banker in New York City to hide the transaction. In all fairness to Floyd, when the South Carolina militia tried to buy additional armaments he turned them down....

Late in December, 1860, John Floyd shipped cannon to two forts in the Deep South. The forts, not yet finished, were not in need of the cannon, which would be easy targets for secessionists. When the shipments were discovered, newspapers quickly uncovered the earlier shipments South and revisited the murky details of his earlier advances to contractors. Floyd was later indicted for the role he played in the payments to the contractors but not for the mishandling of the weapons.

But things didn't turn out quite as Floyd had planned. Not only did President Buchanan not turn over the Forts when the South demanded them, but Anderson, when driven from Fort Moultrie, fled (quite to the South's surprise!) into Fort Sumter -- which, thanks to Floyd's maneuvering, had been defensively fortified with everything but troops!

As Edwin Stanton recounted:

Judge Holt, who was present on the occasion as a member of the Cabinet, thus referred to it in a speech made by him in Charleston, April 14, 1865...

"When intelligence reached the capital that, by a bold and dexterous movement, [Anderson's] command had been transferred from Moultrie to Sumter, and was safe from the disabled guns left behind, the emotions of Floyd were absolutely uncontrollable, — emotions of mingled mortification and disgust and rage and panic. His fury seemed that of some baffled fiend, who suddenly discovers opening at his feet the gulf of ruin he has been preparing for another."

Shortly after, President Buchanan learned of Floyd's actions, and fired him. Afterwards, Floyd joined the Confederacy to fight as a brigadier general.

And so it was that the South was apparently caught in a trap inadvertently constructed by a sympathizer.

Stanton further details the predicament this left the South in:

[Anderson's] brilliant movement, unless disavowed and undone [by President Buchanan], would defeat the plans by which the [Confederate] State expected to be able, without a conflict of arms, to finally expel the last vestige of United States authority from her borders. He had supplies for four months, and could be dislodged only by an attack so sharp and strong that all the world would see that it was the commencement of an aggressive and unprovoked war against the government of the United States.

The Southern cause, which was but yesterday all covered over with peaceful disguises, now bristled with threats of war. The honest soldier at Charleston had baffled all the arts of conspiring diplomacy, and made treason show its open hand.

How tricky was that Lincoln! He set this all up before he took office (much as George Bush convinced the world Iraq had WMD during the 1990s, long before he also took office). The South simply didn't stand a chance against that kind of brilliant conniving. ;-)

Why did the South need Sumter?

Sumter and Moultrie were legally owned by the Federal government -- so there was no defensible claim they were somehow "Southern property" which the North had unjustly taken. (And the South could hardly be accused of not otherwise caring much about property rights!) And although Sumter was well-defended against sea attacks, it wasn't any threat to the land nearby.

So what was the big deal? Wouldn't it have been well worth averting a costly war to cede a few symbolic plots of land, surrounded by water? It's not entirely uncommon for bits of one nation to be owned by another (embassies, Guantanamo Bay, etc) -- especially if (as Southern diplomats often stated) the Confederacy wanted nothing but peace and amicable relations with the North, and also if (as the North had promised) their northern neighbors had vowed to engage in no military aggression?

Yet all along, even before their announcement and request of succession (and Congressional rejection thereof), they had been demanding these properties -- even as early as several weeks before the demand to recognize succession.

My theory was that the Fort was a symbol of legitimacy and equality: the South could not be considered a full-blown independent state if the North didn't agree by ceding it's Federal lands to them. So the fight over these tiny Federal lands, I suspected, was really a fight about needing legitimacy and recognition.

I soon discovered Stanton saw it that way: "The national flag still waved over a government fort, to contradict her [the Confederacy's] claim that succession made her an independent and sovereign power."

And it seemed many leaders from the South shared the same view.

One of their initial justifications for succession was that Northern states openly "denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign [take away the property [i.e. slaves] of the citizens of other States." Clearly, they felt the sting of being morally stigmatized.

And their future intent, as expressed by Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens was to make sure that the contested Western states joined their cause politically (and no doubt also justified their alleged immorality by also honoring the institution of slavery). But to do so, the Confederacy needed to appear equal in every way (or, if possible, superior to) the North:

Our growth, by accessions from other States, will depend greatly upon whether we present to the world, as I trust we shall, a better government than that to which neighboring States belong. If we do this, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas cannot hesitate long; neither can Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri. They will necessarily gravitate to us by an imperious law... Looking to the distant future, and, perhaps, not very far distant either, it is not beyond the range of possibility, and even probability, that all the great States of the north-west will gravitate this way, as well as Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, Arkansas, etc... We are now the nucleus of a growing power which, if we are true to ourselves, our destiny, and high mission, will become the controlling power on this continent.

Other Southern leaders echoed this concern, and explicitly linked it to Sumter. For example, Roger Pryor, a Congressman (D-VA) and journalist (nothing changes, eh?), said, in a speech before the attack:

"Gentlemen, I thank you, especially that you have at last annihilated this accursed Union [Applause] reeking with corruption, and insolent with excess of tyranny. Thank God, it is at last blasted and riven by the lightning wrath of an outraged and indignant people. [Loud applause.] Not only is it gone, but gone forever...."

"For my part, gentlemen," he continued, as soon as he could be heard, " if Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin tomorrow were to abdicate their offices and were to give me a blank sheet of paper fo write the condition of re-annexation to the defunct Union, I would scornfully spurn the overture...."

"Proclaim to the World that upon no condition, and under no circumstances, will South Carolina ever again enter into political association with the Abolitionists of New England. [Cries of 'never,' and applause.] ... And I will tell you, gentlemen, what will put [Virginia] in the Southern Confederacy in less than an hour by Shrewsbury clock — STRIKE A BLOW! [Tremendous applause.] The very moment that blood is shed, old Virginia will make common cause with her sisters of the South. [Applause.] It is impossible she should do otherwise."

These newspaper clippings express the same sentiment:

"Border southern States will never join us until we have indicated our power to free ourselves -- until we have proven that a garrison of seventy men cannot hold the portal of our commerce. Let us be ready for war... The fate of the Southern Confederacy hangs by the ensign halliards of Fort Sumter." (Charleston Mercury, Jan 24, 1861)

"The spirit and even patriotism of the people is oozing out under the do-nothing policy. If something is not done pretty soon... the whole country will become so disgusted with the sham of southern independence that the first change the people get at a popular election they will turn the whole movement topsy-turvy. (A Mobile Alabama newspaper, Jan, 1861)

And indeed, this concern also seems to have motivated Jefferson Davis and his cabinet:

In 1861, shortly after the Confederate Government was put in operation, I was in the city of Montgomery. One day (April 11, 1861) I stepped into the office of the Secretary of War, General Walker, and found there, engaged in a very excited discussion, Mr. Jefferson Davis (the President), Mr. Memminger (Secretary of the Treasury), Mr. Benjamin (Attorney-General), Mr. Gilchrist, a member of our Legislature from Loundes county, and a number of other prominent gentlemen.

They were discussing the propriety of immediately opening fire on Fort Sumter, to which General Walker, the Secretary of War, appeared to be opposed. Mr. Gilchrist said to him, 'Sir, unless you sprinkle blood in the face of the people of Alabama, they will be back in the old Union in less than ten days!'' THE NEXT DAY GENERAL BEAUREGARD OPENED HIS BATTERIES ON SUMTER, AND ALABAMA WAS SAVED TO THE CONFEDERACY." [emphasis in original]

So it was that Sumter was a symbol of Southern sovereignty and legitimacy -- undoubtedly both in the minds of the Confederacy, and in the North. I do not know Lincoln's thought on this, but I expect he also believed that the Western and Northwestern states might very well be drawn to a legitimized South (and thus become slave states), and that the South might very well join with England (as it, in fact, did) against their common American opponent.

So just as Buchanan, Lincoln and other anti-slavery Americans could not legitimize the South by recognizing their separate government -- nor by handing over Federal lands -- so also many in the South could not stand the slight, and felt that they would never be viewed as a trustworthy and legitimate ally as long as any trace of Federal authority could be seen.

That flag in Charleston harbor, and all it implied, simply had to go.