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Thunder in the Harbor: Fort Sumter and the Civil War
Fort Sumter. Charleston. April 1861. The bombardment and surrender of Sumter were only the beginning of the story.
Both sides understood the military significance of the fort and the busy seaport, which played host to one of the longest and most complicated and fascinating campaigns of the entire Civil War. Richard Hatcher's Thunder in the Harbor: Fort Sumter and the Civil War is the first modern monograph to document the role of both the fort and the city throughout the entire Civil War.
After it was captured, Southern troops immediately occupied and improved Sumter's defenses. The U.S. blockaded Charleston Harbor and for two years the fort, with its 50 heavy guns and 500-man garrison, remained mostly untested. That changed in April 1863, when a powerful combined operation set its sights on the fort, Charleston, and its outer defenses. The result was 22-month land and sea siege, the longest of the Civil War. The widespread effort included ironclad attacks, land assaults, raiding parties, and siege operations. Some of the war's most famous events unfolded there under the direction of a host of colorful personalities, including the assault of African American troops against Battery Wagner (depicted in the movie Glory), the shelling of the city by the "Swamp Angel," and the beginning of submarine warfare when the H. L. Hunley sank the USS Housatonic and was herself lost at sea.
The destruction of Fort Sumter remained a key Federal objective throughout the siege. Despite repeated concentrated bombardments of the fort and the city, however, it never fell. The defiant fort, Charleston, and its meandering defensive line were evacuated in February 1865 once word arrived that Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman had taken Columbia, South Carolina and was about to cut off the coastal city.
Hatcher, the former historian at Fort Sumter, mined a host of primary sources to produce an in-depth and fascinating account of the intricacies, complexities, and importance of this campaign to the overall war effort.
Nearly 18 months of shelling had rendered Fort Sumter almost unrecognizable, but the significance of its location remained. During the eight decades that followed, the United States invested millions of dollars and thousands of hours rebuilding and rearming the fort to face potential foreign threats in three different wars. By the end of World War II, sea and air power had been made Sumter obsolete, and the fort was transferred to the National Park Service. Thunder in the Harbor fills a large gap in the historiography of the war and underscores that there is still much to learn about our endlessly fascinating Civil War.
Both sides understood the military significance of the fort and the busy seaport, which played host to one of the longest and most complicated and fascinating campaigns of the entire Civil War. Richard Hatcher's Thunder in the Harbor: Fort Sumter and the Civil War is the first modern monograph to document the role of both the fort and the city throughout the entire Civil War.
After it was captured, Southern troops immediately occupied and improved Sumter's defenses. The U.S. blockaded Charleston Harbor and for two years the fort, with its 50 heavy guns and 500-man garrison, remained mostly untested. That changed in April 1863, when a powerful combined operation set its sights on the fort, Charleston, and its outer defenses. The result was 22-month land and sea siege, the longest of the Civil War. The widespread effort included ironclad attacks, land assaults, raiding parties, and siege operations. Some of the war's most famous events unfolded there under the direction of a host of colorful personalities, including the assault of African American troops against Battery Wagner (depicted in the movie Glory), the shelling of the city by the "Swamp Angel," and the beginning of submarine warfare when the H. L. Hunley sank the USS Housatonic and was herself lost at sea.
The destruction of Fort Sumter remained a key Federal objective throughout the siege. Despite repeated concentrated bombardments of the fort and the city, however, it never fell. The defiant fort, Charleston, and its meandering defensive line were evacuated in February 1865 once word arrived that Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman had taken Columbia, South Carolina and was about to cut off the coastal city.
Hatcher, the former historian at Fort Sumter, mined a host of primary sources to produce an in-depth and fascinating account of the intricacies, complexities, and importance of this campaign to the overall war effort.
Nearly 18 months of shelling had rendered Fort Sumter almost unrecognizable, but the significance of its location remained. During the eight decades that followed, the United States invested millions of dollars and thousands of hours rebuilding and rearming the fort to face potential foreign threats in three different wars. By the end of World War II, sea and air power had been made Sumter obsolete, and the fort was transferred to the National Park Service. Thunder in the Harbor fills a large gap in the historiography of the war and underscores that there is still much to learn about our endlessly fascinating Civil War.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published December 15, 2023
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
May 16, 2024
It's easy to think of many historic sites as being frozen in time. Monticello today looks just as Thomas Jefferson left it - as long as you don’t think about the many decades when other people owned the place. You can visit Ford's Theatre in Washington to see what it looked like the night Lincoln was shot, without ever knowing that it had once been repurposed as office space for the War Department and was hardly considered a historic site at all.
It turns out the same is true of Fort Sumter, where the Civil War began. Under bombardment in April 1861, the Union surrendered the fort. Fast forward to today, and you can visit to see the place for yourself and envision what it was like then.
But what exactly happened between then and now? That’s the gap this book aims to address.
Most books about the Civil War end Fort Sumter’s story with its surrender, before turning their attention to the war that resulted. Maybe they include a coda about the ceremony held there at the end of the war, where the former commander returned to raise the U.S. flag, but that’s about it. In this book, the Battle of Fort Sumter is over in chapter 4 and the story is just getting started.
Beforehand, Hatcher includes a prewar history of the area’s settlement and the construction of Sumter. The book continues with the familiar story of South Carolina’s secession and the battle that started the war. And then Hatcher goes on to describe whatever happened to the fort, during and after its time under Confederate control. At first, it’s about daily life at the fort, and the blockade runners that sailed into and out of Charleston, amid concerns the city would be attacked.
Those concerns became reality in 1863, as the Union launched an assault on the fort and on Charleston itself, in order to capture “the birthplace of treason.” The initial naval assault failed, but a more successful land and sea assault followed. Hatcher describes the steady bombardment of Sumter and Charleston that continued on and off for the next year and a half. Those in the fort steadily lost their ability to fight back and resorted to defending themselves with rifles, as the fort was slowly reduced to “a shapeless and harmless mass of ruins.”
That’s certainly not what you see when you visit Sumter today. Once the Confederates abandoned the fort as Gen. Sherman moved north from Savannah and the war neared its end, Hatcher goes on to recount the long postwar process of rebuilding the fort and restoring it to service, which took decades and was hampered by a lack of funding, numerous destructive hurricanes and even an earthquake.
It seems ironic at this point to consider that the Union initially sought to defend the fort at all costs, and surrendered it largely intact after suffering no serious casualties during the attack, then turned its guns around and essentially destroyed the same fort it had once fought to protect, while causing hundreds of casualties, only to eventually retake control and ultimately rebuild the very damage it had caused.
Once rebuilt, it wasn’t until the 1930’s that the fort started to become a regular tourist destination, and it was in the 1940’s when the fort was finally declared obsolete and ultimately closed, clearing the way for it to become a historical site remembered for what it was rather than what it had become during the eight postwar decades it had remained in service.
The history of the fort is interesting in broad strokes, but I’d have to say the specifics aren’t always compelling. The book is often dryly factual, overly detailed in places about armaments used, various construction projects and materials, and the changing layout of the fort over time. After the Civil War, Hatcher doesn’t really tell a story so much as he just relates facts and events. And when he reaches the present day, the book abruptly ends, as though there’s simply nothing more to say, when he might have offered some concluding thoughts about the site, its legacy, its meaning or even about the importance of historic preservation in general.
But Hatcher gets points for the idea of the book, if not necessarily for its execution. It’s not always riveting or compellingly written, but it’s good that this book exists to fill in a historical gap, and to remind us that it can take a lot of work to maintain the illusion that everything at a historic site has been perpetually preserved, precisely as it once was - and that the stretch of time between a historical event and the preservation of that event can be a story in itself.
It turns out the same is true of Fort Sumter, where the Civil War began. Under bombardment in April 1861, the Union surrendered the fort. Fast forward to today, and you can visit to see the place for yourself and envision what it was like then.
But what exactly happened between then and now? That’s the gap this book aims to address.
Most books about the Civil War end Fort Sumter’s story with its surrender, before turning their attention to the war that resulted. Maybe they include a coda about the ceremony held there at the end of the war, where the former commander returned to raise the U.S. flag, but that’s about it. In this book, the Battle of Fort Sumter is over in chapter 4 and the story is just getting started.
Beforehand, Hatcher includes a prewar history of the area’s settlement and the construction of Sumter. The book continues with the familiar story of South Carolina’s secession and the battle that started the war. And then Hatcher goes on to describe whatever happened to the fort, during and after its time under Confederate control. At first, it’s about daily life at the fort, and the blockade runners that sailed into and out of Charleston, amid concerns the city would be attacked.
Those concerns became reality in 1863, as the Union launched an assault on the fort and on Charleston itself, in order to capture “the birthplace of treason.” The initial naval assault failed, but a more successful land and sea assault followed. Hatcher describes the steady bombardment of Sumter and Charleston that continued on and off for the next year and a half. Those in the fort steadily lost their ability to fight back and resorted to defending themselves with rifles, as the fort was slowly reduced to “a shapeless and harmless mass of ruins.”
That’s certainly not what you see when you visit Sumter today. Once the Confederates abandoned the fort as Gen. Sherman moved north from Savannah and the war neared its end, Hatcher goes on to recount the long postwar process of rebuilding the fort and restoring it to service, which took decades and was hampered by a lack of funding, numerous destructive hurricanes and even an earthquake.
It seems ironic at this point to consider that the Union initially sought to defend the fort at all costs, and surrendered it largely intact after suffering no serious casualties during the attack, then turned its guns around and essentially destroyed the same fort it had once fought to protect, while causing hundreds of casualties, only to eventually retake control and ultimately rebuild the very damage it had caused.
Once rebuilt, it wasn’t until the 1930’s that the fort started to become a regular tourist destination, and it was in the 1940’s when the fort was finally declared obsolete and ultimately closed, clearing the way for it to become a historical site remembered for what it was rather than what it had become during the eight postwar decades it had remained in service.
The history of the fort is interesting in broad strokes, but I’d have to say the specifics aren’t always compelling. The book is often dryly factual, overly detailed in places about armaments used, various construction projects and materials, and the changing layout of the fort over time. After the Civil War, Hatcher doesn’t really tell a story so much as he just relates facts and events. And when he reaches the present day, the book abruptly ends, as though there’s simply nothing more to say, when he might have offered some concluding thoughts about the site, its legacy, its meaning or even about the importance of historic preservation in general.
But Hatcher gets points for the idea of the book, if not necessarily for its execution. It’s not always riveting or compellingly written, but it’s good that this book exists to fill in a historical gap, and to remind us that it can take a lot of work to maintain the illusion that everything at a historic site has been perpetually preserved, precisely as it once was - and that the stretch of time between a historical event and the preservation of that event can be a story in itself.
May 5, 2024
A detailed history of Fort Sumter 1861-1865, supplemented by brief information on its slow construction and a summary of postwar years until its handover to the National Park Service.
The fort's history is covered well, and put into context with surrounding events from operations against Charleston. The writing is solid. Maps, diagrams, and photos are well-placed throughout. The author is the retired official historian of the fort so it's no surprise he's done extensive research and knows his stuff.
Fort Sumter's role in the war is less excitement and more endurance. After the Union established heavy artillery batteries on Morris Island they shelled much of Sumter into a pile of rubble, albeit semi-functional rubble. There's no much the author could do about that.
Sumter's story is also so tied into the larger Charleston Campaign that at times I lamented this wasn't part of a larger book. There's also basically nothing about the 70+ years that NPS has operated the fort. Although a little disappointing, these are both understandable editorial decisions.
A suggestion for readers: bookmark the diagram of the fort on page 7. The author is very good about his use of fort terminology, but being less familiar with some of it myself at times I struggled to remember which part was what and faced which direction.
I'd give this 3.5 stars if I could, but it read well enough I will round up. A must-read for fortification buffs and a moderate recommendation for Civil War buffs. Probably too detailed for general history readers.
The fort's history is covered well, and put into context with surrounding events from operations against Charleston. The writing is solid. Maps, diagrams, and photos are well-placed throughout. The author is the retired official historian of the fort so it's no surprise he's done extensive research and knows his stuff.
Fort Sumter's role in the war is less excitement and more endurance. After the Union established heavy artillery batteries on Morris Island they shelled much of Sumter into a pile of rubble, albeit semi-functional rubble. There's no much the author could do about that.
Sumter's story is also so tied into the larger Charleston Campaign that at times I lamented this wasn't part of a larger book. There's also basically nothing about the 70+ years that NPS has operated the fort. Although a little disappointing, these are both understandable editorial decisions.
A suggestion for readers: bookmark the diagram of the fort on page 7. The author is very good about his use of fort terminology, but being less familiar with some of it myself at times I struggled to remember which part was what and faced which direction.
I'd give this 3.5 stars if I could, but it read well enough I will round up. A must-read for fortification buffs and a moderate recommendation for Civil War buffs. Probably too detailed for general history readers.
July 24, 2024
I worked at then Fort Sumter National Monument as a summer seasonal while in college. This history covers the high points of the fort's history and was an enjoyable read, albeit short. I did expect somewhat more detail, but Hatcher did an excellent job of covering the fort's defining moment, the opening of the Civil War. An enjoyable read, good narrative style, yes, I recommend it.
May 25, 2024
This is a very well detailed book about an interesting subject. The use of primary sources is excellent.
May 6, 2026
Solid 4 stars. Short account of the US surrender of Fort Sumter to the Confederates, and the subsequent 4 years of fighting to get it back into Union hands. Very detailed and informative.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews