Ella Wood

This is Hilton Head Island, near Fort Walker, looking across Port Royal Sound to where Fort Beauregard would have stood. The Union ships circled in an eliptical pattern, firing on one fort then crossing the sound and firing on the other.

This is Hilton Head Island near Fort Walker overlooking Port Royal Sound where the naval Battle of Port Royal established a Union beachhead early in the war (Nov. 1861). The Union used Hilton Head as a base of operations for the Atlantic blockade as well as operations against the coastline, particularly those against Charleston.

Battle of Port Royal, Nov. 7, 1861. This map of the SC coast shows the strategic location of Port Royal. Its capture gave the Union control over the entire coast, except Charleston. Blockade vessels could be suppled, repaired, and fueled there. And it was ideally situated for troop training and outfitting in the siege against Charleston.

The November 7, 1861 Battle of Port Royal, one of the first amphibious assaults of the Civil War. Port Royal was strategically located between Savannah and Charleston. Union gunboats circled the harbor, alternately pounding the two Confederate forts on either side of the inlet.

Brigadier General Pierre Gustave Toutant-Beauregard was in charge of Confederate fortifications in Charleston harbor in spring of 1861. It was he who ordered the first shots of the Battle of Fort Sumter fired against his friend, US Army Major Robert Anderson.

Four Drummond lights (or limelights) were used in Charleston harbor in March 1861 to prevent the Union from resupplying the Federal-held Fort Sumter in the middle of the night. These lights were originally used for theater lighting.

SC Governor Francis Wilkinson Pickens took office just one month before the state voted to seceded. Despite the formation of the Confederacy in February 1861, Pickens continued to aggressively build up state defenses all around Fort Sumter with plans to fire on it in mid-Feb. President Jefferson Davis had to admonish him to not start a war but leave the decision to the new Confederate government.

Major Robert Anderson, United States Army, a Southern sympathizer, was sent to take charged of Federal military properties in Charleston harbor after Sucession (Dec. '61) and charged to keep the peace. As the situation escalated and state positions were strengthened, he sent to Washington repeatedly for instruction. None was ever given. Anderson was left to his own devices. He had little choice but to surrender Fort Sumter after its bombardment in April.

1865 image of Fort Moultrie. Federal troops abandoned the fort and relocated to Fort Sumter after South Carolina seceded in Dec. 1860. It was then occupied by Southern troops who eventually fired on Sumter and forced its surrender in April 1861.

The Star of the West, a ship sent to resupply Fort Sumter, was fired upon in Charleston harbor from the battery on Morris Island manned by cadets (boys) from Charleston's military academy. The ship turned away. They were the first shots of the war. Jan. 9, 1861

My husband and I walking the battery prominade where Thad and Emily walked. It hasn't changed all that much.