Fort Sumter

The good folks at HMDB give us this one regarding a marker located inside Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor.

While in Confederate hands, it really took a pounding, especially in 1863. These are taken from dispatches from the fort.

AUGUST 14th-- 470 laborers and mechanics working in two reliefs"day and night upon defenses of the fort>"

AUGUST 18th-- Enemy bombarded rapidly from 5 am to 7 pm: 876 "shots and shells were fired; 452 struck outside, 244 inside and 180 passed over."

AUGUST 24th-- "210 negros engaged all night in strengthening western magazine.... The flagstaff was shot away twice. The garrison worked all night."

SEPTEMBER 4th-- "There is now not a single gun en barbette (meaning on top of the parapet and not firing from an embrasure)....The northeastern and northwestern terre plain have fallen in....The greater portion of the southern wall is down. The eastern wall is very near shot away."

Before the war, the fort had three levels, but the fort was in ruins by the end of it. More of a pile of bricks than anything else. Partly rebuilt in the 1870s. Battery Huger was built in the fort during the Spanish-American War. The fort continued to be part of the US coastal defense system until after World War II.

Took a Pounding, But Kept on Ticking. --B'R'er