Battle of Fort Sumter

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Are you a student learning about the Civil War? Are you a teacher preparing to teach about the Civil War? This website is for both of you! It will even be helpful if you are just curious about the Civil War.

If you are a student, you can read about the Battle of Fort Sumter in the sections below. If you have questions as you read, you can send me a message, and I will do my best to get back to you.

If you are a teacher, you can use this website as a resource for yourself and your students, or you can purchase my printable reading passages and comprehension questions. They are available at Teachers Pay Teachers.

The Battle of Fort Sumter

April 12, 1861

The Civil War, a war that caused the deaths of over 600,000 Americans, began with a battle with only two

casualties. On December 20, 1860, South Carolina seceded from the United States of America. At this time, Major Robert Anderson and his federal troops were stationed at Fort Moultrie near Charleston Harbor.

Realizing the fort would be difficult to defend, Anderson moved his men and their families to the newly constructed Fort Sumter nearby. South Carolina’s governor, Francis Pickens, was infuriated that his state was being occupied by a “foreign” government. He began a siege on the fort to try to force Anderson’s surrender. Women and children were evacuated from the fort, but Anderson and his men refused to leave.

On March 1, 1861, Confederate president, Jefferson Davis, sent Brigadier General Beauregard to end the siege of Fort Sumter. In an example of the complicated relationships the Civil War created, Beauregard had been one of Anderson’s students at West Point.

By mid-April, Anderson was running dangerously low on food, and the Confederates were growing tired of the siege as well. At four-thirty in the morning on April 12, 1861, Beauregard began firing on the fort. The battle would last for thirty-six hours before Anderson surrendered on April 14. One of the terms of surrender was the right to have a one-hundred-gun salute to the American flag before leaving the fort. This act of patriotism caused the only two casualties of the battle. One of the rifles misfired, killing one soldier and mortally injuring another. These men would be the first in a very long list of Civil War casualties.

Want to learn more about the Civil War? Check out the links below!