Role in The Beginning of The Civil War
Twice in early 1861, the Army secretly dispatched troops and provisions from Fort Columbus to relieve the besieged garrison at Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina. Outgoing President James Buchanan initiated the first effort, but cadets from The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina, fired on the Army-chartered New York-based steamship Star of the West on 9 January 1861 as it entered Charleston harbor. The incident provoked a crisis while other southern states began to more seriously consider secession from the Union. The second effort which marks the beginning of the Civil War also failed when it prompted South Carolina forces to fire on Fort Sumter on the early morning of 9 April 1861.
During the Civil War, Fort Columbus served as a recruitment center and hospital. Fort Columbus and Castle Williams also served as a temporary prisoner of war camp and confinement hospital for Confederate prisoners during the war. Major General William H. C. Whiting (CSA) died of dysentery in February 1865 while in captivity in post hospital shortly after his surrender at the Battle of Fort Fisher in North Carolina . He was the highest ranking Confederate officer to die as a prisoner of war.
Read more about this topic: Fort Columbus
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“At Hayes’ General Store, west of the cemetery, hangs an old army rifle, used by a discouraged Civil War veteran to end his earthly troubles. The grocer took the rifle as payment ‘on account.’”
—Administration for the State of Con, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
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—Arlene Harder (20th century)
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—Rebecca Latimer Felton (1835–1930)
“Colonel Shaw
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“... when there is a war the years are longer that is to say the days are longer the months are longer the years are much longer but the weeks are shorter that is what makes a war.”
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