[The following is in regards to the evacuation of the Fort Sumter garrison following their surrender of the fort to the Confederate forces of South Carolina in the opening phases of the American Civil War.]
The explosion and the follow-up added an extra hour or two, and it was almost 4:30 when the garrison marched out through the blackened gate. Six men held aloft Peter Hart’s tall, heavy spar with the American flag attached. Their clothes were ragged. A month earlier Foster had written a friend, asking for thread. He had wanted to patch his uniform, “for I swear I am in tatters.” Now they looked like remnants from Valley Forge. As they started toward the ship, their band struck up “Yankee Doodle.” It seemed right somehow. (For some reason they followed that with “Hail to the Chief.”)
Due to the delay, the Isabel [the ship which would ferry the defeated garrison off the island] was stuck on the shoal, just a few yards from Fort Sumter, and Anderson’s garrison had to listen all night to the sounds of speechifying inside the fort and revelry throughout the harbor. Captain Hatstene, an empathetic man, sensed their discomfort. He raised their flag over his ship so they might feel less alienated.
The next morning, April 15, 1861: The tide rose and the Isabel headed toward the fleet. As the steamer passed Cummings Point the [Confederate] soldiers of the Marion Artillery, led by Captain J. Gadsden King, saw it coming. They silently took off their caps and stood at attention on the sands, in honor of their gallant foe.
Source:
Detzer, David. “Ashes and Dust.” Allegiance: Fort Sumter, Charleston, and the Beginning of the Civil War. New York: Harcourt, 2002. 310. Print.
Original Source(s) Listed:
The afternoon and departure: OR, I, 56.
REM, pp. 171-72.
GEN, p. 446.
William Marvel, “The First to Fall,” unpublished typescript, 1986, FM.
Jensen, pp. 118f.
Mercury and Courier, April 15-23, 1861.
Foster’s letter: New York Herald, April 6, 1861.
Further Reading:
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