01-11-2005, 10:03 PM
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#96 (permalink)
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Easy Rider
Location: Moscow on the Ohio
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As usual there's two sides to this.
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Originally Posted by CShine
The island upon which Ft. Sumter rests was never, ever part of the state of South Carolina. It is a man-made island which was created by the authority of Congress in the 1820's for the expressed purpose of building the fort. It was ALWAYS federal government property from the beginning and South Carolina never had any credible claim to it.
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Remember that South Carolina had legally seceded from the Union with the united States, and Fort Sumter was on South Carolina land. After South Carolina seceded, the fort was still manned by a Union garrison. The South Carolina demanded possession of the fort and offered to pay for it. The Lincoln administration promised that the garrison would leave. However, Lincoln sent Federal war ships, which were supposed to be ships providing provisions for the men there, but instead were actually war ships. When General Beauregard learned of the ships sailing for Fort Sumter, he demanded that Major Anderson, the Union general in charge of the garrison, surrender the fort, or he would commence firing. Anderson refused to surrender, and Beauregard gave the order to fire before the garrison could be reinforced by the Federal war ships.
In short, South Carolina wanted her property back, offered to buy it back, and were promised to be given it back. When the promise was found out to be a lie, they were forced to take it back with force. Lincoln knew he could not gain support of the Northern people for war, so he forced the South into a position of "firing the first shots", This allowed him to trick the North and the world, and as we see now most history teachers into thinking, "Look, Confederates fired on our United States flag. They want war." You can see this was a propaganda stunt staged by the Northerners to win sympathy for the political aspirations of Lincoln. Quote
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