Was It the First Cannonball Fired at Fort Sumter?

A very interesting entry in the Civil War Picket blog http://civil-war-picket.blogspot.com.

Perhaps, the cannonball sitting outside this Georgia courthouse was the first shot of the Civil War. Perhaps not.

At 4:30 am, April 12, 1861, 66 year-old Southern firebrand Edmund Ruffin fired the first shot of the Civil War. Captain G. B. Cuthbert of the Palmetto Guards wrote, "The first shell from Columbiad No. 1, fired by the venerable Ruffin burst directly upon the parapet of the southwest angle of the fort."

Sumter surrendered 34 hours later.

P.W. Alexander, a correspondent from Thomaston, Georgia was there and got out to the fort as soon as he could with intentions of finding Ruffin's shot. He found it, or what he thought may have been that first shot.

"The big ten-inch ball fell within Fort Sumter without doing any damage," reported the Thomaston Times. Alexander got it and sent it along to his friend B. B. White.

Today, about 800,000 a year visit Fort Sumter with far fewer going to the Upson County courthouse in Thomaston, Georgia, 300 miles from Charleston and 60 miles south of Atlanta.

I doubt that it was the first shell. Picking one specific shell from the many fired during the siege would be hard and plus Captain Cuthbert reported that it burst. The one in Georgia is in one piece.

Either way, it was at Fort Sumter during these early days of the war.

I have written about a Confederate cannon that is believed to have been at the Battle of Fort Sumter located in Galena, Illinois at Grant Park. Check out the Galena Blakely label.

Something to Check Out If I Ever get Down That Way. --Old B-Runner