Such clearly was the idea of the commander of the Pawnee, when he
declined, as Captain Fox informs us, without orders from a superior, to
make any effort to enter the harbor, "there to inaugurate civil war."
The straightforward simplicity of the sailor had not been perverted by
the shams of political sophistry. Even Mr. Horace Greeley, with all his
extreme partisan feeling, is obliged to admit that, "whether the
bombardment and reduction of Fort Sumter shall or shall not be justified
by posterity, it is clear that the Confederacy had no alternative but
its own dissolution."[168]
According to the notice given by General Beauregard, fire was opened
upon Fort Sumter, from the various batteries which had been erected
around the harbor, at half-past four o'clock on the morning of Friday,
the 12th of April, 1861. The fort soon responded. It is not the purpose
of this work to give minute details of the military operation, as the
events of the bombardment have been often related, and are generally
well known, with no material discrepancy in matters of fact among the
statements of the various participants. It is enough, therefore, to add
that the bombardment continued for about thirty-three or thirty-four
hours. The fort was eventually set on fire by shells, after having been
partly destroyed by shot, and Major Anderson, after a resolute defense,
finally surrendered on the 13th--the same terms being accorded to him
which had been offered two days before.
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