Talk:Battle of Fort Sumter

Template:Maintained

Article upgrade

I'm making an intermittent effort to get the article up to, hopefully, FA status. The French Article is already at that point, so I'm liberally stealing ideas from them, with my limited Francophone abilities. The French article lifted several images from the National Park Service websites. I confirmed by email today that all images there, unless otherwise noted, are public domain, so if anyone has any suggestions for prettying-up the article, we have resources. DCB4W 18:42, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

nothing happened the union won and no onw died only one fed horse died —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.226.54.18 (talk) 00:32, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Bonds of

restore bonds of what? In the first section. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Orpheus Machina (talk • contribs) 08:55, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Actually there were no casualties

The two who were killed, were killed after the surrender and are not considered part of the battle casualties. There was an accidental powder explosion during a gun salute.it sound a little wired but it is vary true.--Jojhutton (talk) 20:11, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Casualties ≠ Mortalities. There were in fact wounded men during the battle. ⋙–Berean–Hunter—► ((⊕)) 00:29, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps not, but then why would there be a seperate number for wounded in the info box?--Jojhutton (talk) 00:31, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

There isn't a separate number. Any figures listed are part of the casualties which include killed, wounded, & missing...that is an itemization of casualties.
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► ((⊕)) 01:50, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

The actual number of killed or wounded on the Union side during the battle were zero. Every casualty that occured in the fort happened after the surrender. Even the 5 wounded, which one died a few days later.--Jojhutton (talk) 12:44, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

What is your source for that?⋙–Berean–Hunter—► ((⊕)) 23:18, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, where to begin? First Blood:The Story of Fort Sumter. by W.A. Swanberg. pg 322.

The only fatality of the battle was a horse killed on Morris Island.

Page 328.

This page describes the surrender, and the 100 gun salute that went wrong. A bit of loose powder was exploded and killed Pvt. Daniel Hough instantly. Five others were wounded and one of those five died a few days later.--Jojhutton (talk) 02:10, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

<==So you conveniently left out the part that describes the 4 that were wounded at Ft. Sumter during the battle on the same page (322) and directly preceding the sentence you quoted "by flying brick or pieces of shell, none of them seriously." Obviously, not zero as you claim...Swanberg is indeed a source for the 4 Union casualties during the battle. ⋙–Berean–Hunter—► ((⊕)) 02:30, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

That's Ok, I wasn't arguing wounded, only deaths, but if you want to include minor scrapes and bruises in the injury count, I don't care. And are you accusing me of Bad faith because your tone has turned hostile all of a sudden. I thought we were having a nice discusion.--Jojhutton (talk) 02:38, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

For the record, the horse was Confederate. :) ⋙–Berean–Hunter—► ((⊕)) 02:33, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Obviously, if it was on Morris Island.--Jojhutton (talk) 02:40, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Hostile? Bad faith?..er, no. Where does that come from? But I do see the problem..you are here to make an argument about no deaths during the battle...I haven't seen anyone arguing with you about that. You incorrectly labeled this section with a devout declaration that there were no casualties. Realizing that you didn't know what the word meant, I made a comment to help you out as well as any other reader who might be following along. But you persisted with this by declaring "The actual number of killed or wounded on the Union side during the battle were zero." Since the infobox has some wounded and the source has wounded listed that is clearly wrong. You omitted the preceding sentence which was kinda important and hard to miss. I think we are Apples/Oranges here..with my point being that there were wounded declared and that is what the sources say. Clearly, I'm not upset or I wouldn't have made the horse joke.
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► ((⊕)) 03:02, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Gotcha, no harm no foul. I usually consider casualties as deaths, and wounded as injuries, but you are correct on the terminology. So do we agree that there were zero deaths and four wounded?--Jojhutton (talk) 03:09, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Except the horse!...(yes, I think we agree) Cheers,
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► ((⊕)) 03:15, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

I understand that the term "causualty" can include either wounded or dead, but the fact that there were no deaths at all during the battle should be made clear in the infobox. When I started to read it I immediately thought "11 dead, and 2 more killed after the battle." The simple inclusion of "wounded" after the number would clear that up, erase the impression of contradiction with the parts of the article describing no deaths and give a better sense of the event. The Cap'n (talk) 17:12, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Contradictions

Assertions in this article contradict the Fort Sumter article - particularly regarding casualties. There are also less details in this article about the events just before the battle than there are in the fort article --JimWae (talk) 07:31, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Intro

The intro to this article is terrible. Who started the fight? Who won it? I don't have any time to work on this right now. Bsimmons666 (talk) 02:32, 11 March 2009 (UTC) Bold text

Effect on the fort building

Judging by the photo, the fort appears to have been utterly destroyed. Can anyone confirm this, and perhaps add a sentence to that effect in the article? --Doradus (talk) 14:37, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Which photo are you referring to? No, it wasn't destroyed in this battle. Later in 1863, it will be damaged far more in the Second Battle of Fort Sumter.
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► ((⊕)) 14:53, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

"The barracks, officers' quarters and other wooden buildings were destroyed, but the walls of the fort suffered little damage, evidence that Anderson might have held longer had it not been for the wood, and presaging the later struggle of its Confederate defenders against month after month of Federal bombardment."

From

• Ripley, Warren (1992). “Confederate Artillery Shells Sumter”. In Wilcox, Arthur M. & Ripley, Warren, The Civil War at Charleston, pp. 17–18. Sixteenth Ed. Evening-Post Publishing Co.

⋙–Berean–Hunter—► ((⊕)) 15:21, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm referring to this photo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:FortSumter1865.jpg

Our caption claims it's from 1863 for some reason. --Doradus (talk) 17:07, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for pointing it out. I've removed it and placed a retouched version in Second Battle of Fort Sumter.
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► ((⊕)) 17:18, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Oh, I get it now. It was destroyed ("reduced to a pile of rubble") in the second battle. Thanks! --Doradus (talk) 17:00, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

the beging of this is horribel and lots of the info is wrong but i dont have time to editit —Preceding unsigned comment added by Darkshade123 (talk • contribs) 18:12, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Operation Brothers at War

Hello, folks. Some of you may have read about the special project underway called Operation Brothers at War. It is under the umbrella of WikiProject Military History and represents an effort to get articles on major battles (and leaders) of the Civil War up to FA class in time for their 150th anniversary. Naturally, it would be ideal to kick off the project with this article on the main page on April 12, 2011. The time approaches. I think this article looks very good (my congratulations to the editors who have worked on it over the years) and I think it's nearly ready. I'd be willing to usher it through a peer review by WikiProject Military History and the FA review and work on necessary changes. I thought I'd start by posting here and seeing if any of the past editors might want to do that...don't want to step on any toes. Regards, Historical Perspective (talk) 12:54, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Images

Was going to say this ont he F, but... didn't get there in time. You could do FAR better than the images in this article. Take the lead image. You could use that tiny, bad scan, but if you know where to look, it's easy to find images like this: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/ppmsca.19520/ - that TIFF should be at least 1000px wide, probably more, and the colour fidelity is much better.

The Library of Congress has 192 images related to Fort Sumter. While not all will be useful, I suspect you could make a much better-illustrated article. For example, this would be a wonderful inclusion, or you could use this to set the scene. There's also various images of the interior, some during the battle.

Oh, in case you don't know: always download the TIFF, then convert to JPEG or PNG for upload (preferably both: JPEG is lossy, but PNG is lossless and thus can be edited easily, for example, to get you a featured picture to go with your article - but large PNGs can fail to display because five years later, noone at mediawiki can be arsed to put in the new PNG code that's been made for dealing with large PNGs... I'm ranting.). Anyway! The JPEGs that the LoC offer are always much smaller than the full-resolution TIFFs, so use the TIFF. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 04:44, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

I would prefer to use PNG but I know I ran across where they tell you to convert to JPG...can't remember where at the moment (here it is). As long as the image doesn't go over 3500 pixels on a side, it should be okay. I do download the TIFF and then do any cropping, rescaling, rotating, etc. while it is in that format before converting. I'm using GIMP and occasionally ImageMagick. Gimp converts the largest 16 channel TIFFs to 8 channel.

Many of the photos should not be uploaded as presented by LOC. They need to be cropped and possibly refinished. Compare this vs. my rendering. That took a while to do.

Most of the images for Fort Sumter are after the damages of 1863. Many of the plates are broken and scratched. Some aren't very pertinent. I love this one...look at the small gray phantom just above the little girl's head...that is Fort Sumter. That said, I don't mind getting whatever the editors here want for the article. Unless it exceeds 3500px dimension, they will probably be PNG.
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► ((⊕)) 12:57, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Visiting your suggested images. The image in the infobox is in the same set of images (3rd thumbnail down) as the first you suggest (1st thumbnail)...I don't see your point about better color resolution with the first over the third. Perhaps the third could be uploaded in higher res. The second image you suggest shouldn't be used in this article at all but perhaps in the Second Battle of Fort Sumter article...notice that Confederate flag flying over the fort, this is a depiction from the 1863 siege. The third image you suggest is from 1901 and is accurate to that time...the fort didn't look like this at all in 1861. The top two levels have been demolished and most of the embrasures are sealed off. That lighthouse & house didn't exist during the Civil War...it is a very nice print, however.
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► ((⊕)) 14:29, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Legal Issue

I think SOME of the following paragraph IS relevant to the article, since the battle took place because the CSA claimed the land had become theirs (and some claim SC never ceded title to the land)--JimWae (talk) 21:39, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Fort Sumter, by contrast, was built on a shoal in the middle of the entrance to the harbor. Interestingly, during construction, one Major William Laval claimed that he owned the land on which the new fort was being built—even though the "land" was under water—and construction stopped. Anxious to have the fort built, the South Carolina legislature ceded "to the United States, all the right, title and claim of South Carolina to the site of Fort Sumter and the requisite quantity of adjacent territory" in 1836, reserving only the right to serve and execute legal process. As a result, Fort Sumter did not belong to South Carolina.

Perhaps so, but it needs a more thoughtful presentation and set of references than the text I deleted. The book length references about Fort Sumter that are currently in the article do not mention this as an issue. The citation was to a Civil War website article signed by an unknown author, which does not conform to the kinds of references we usually use for these articles. One of the NPS websites in the references list mentions Laval's suit and the construction delays, but renders no judgment about whether the legal title was still valid. This, of course, is more of a diplomatic matter than a legal one. Hal Jespersen (talk) 15:47, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

The day BEFORE Sumpter Was Shelled

The day before Sumpter was shelled, the Charleston tax collector (I’ve forgotten his name) was threatened with tar and feathering (for all the funniness of the term, it was a very serious death threat at the time). He attempted to flee to Sumpter, and his pursuers followed him out into the harbor; The fort fired “warning shots” (I do not know what the nature of the shots were, only that they have been referred to as “warning shots”). The pursuers broke off, only to return the next day to finish the “discussion.”
The article should include this event.Trying To Make Wikipedia At Least Better Than The ''Weekly World News.'' (talk) 21:26, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

I've been looking through Google Books to find a source for this but haven't come up with one (This search). Do you happen to know of a source? Was this supposed to be a SC tax collector or federal tax collector?
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► 14:45, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Ooh… I don’t actually know the answer to that. Because he was headed to Fort Sumter, I ASSUMED (that’s a bad word for me, along the lines of that old joke), but I don’t know for sure… As to sources: My dad has the book (it’s part of his collection). Give me a few days. In the interim, Time-Life produced a book series on the Civil War, and it may have been mentioned there. (The books are grey covered, usually has a pic that would have been made at the time of the war. Look for references Sumter, the start of the war, or perhaps HARRIET LANE, an RCS Cutter that was involved in the battle.)Trying To Make Wikipedia At Least Better Than The ''Weekly World News.'' (talk) 05:03, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Gallway or Galloway?

With regards to the surrender ceremony, is it "Private Edward Gallway" or "Galloway"? The latter form is used in the German-language entry. There appear to be decent sources for both spellings, albeit the variant with o seems more common (which, though, obviously doesn't have to equal "correct"). – ὁ οἶστρος (talk) 18:38, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

There is No Mention of the Breach of the Constitution by The Federal Force Refusing to Leave

Read the VIRGINIA RATIFYING CONVENTION 6-16-1788 http://www.pacificwestcom.com/americanpatriotpartynewsletter

Mr. GREYSTON: "...It was often in contemplation of Congress to have power of regulating the police of the seat of government; but they >>>"NEVER" had an idea of exclusive legislation in all cases. The power of regulating the police and good government of >>>"it" (APP: THE "PLACE" i.e the 10 miles square of Washington DC) will secure Congress against insults. "What originated the IDEA" of the "exclusive legislation" was, some insurrection in Pennsylvania, whereby Congress was insulted, on account of which, it is supposed, they left the state.

It is answered that the CONSENT of the STATE MUST be "REQUIRED", or else they CANNOT have such a district, "OR" places for the erecting of FORTS..."

Note: the Civil War was begun by the federal government exceeding this limitation of federal power in attempting to refuse a state's Constitutional Right of "power of consent" to allow or disallow federal forces to keep or occupy a fort within their state - FORT SUMTER

Mr. PENDLETON. "Mr. Chairman, this clause does "NOT" give Congress power to impede the operation of "ANY PART" of the Constitution, (N)or to make >>>"ANY" "REGULATION" that may affect the interests of the citizens of the Union >>>AT LARGE. But it gives them power over the "local" "police of THE >>>PLACE" (APP: THE "PLACE" i.e the 10 miles square of Washington DC), so as to be secured from any interruption in their proceedings. Notwithstanding the violent attack upon it, I believe, sir, this is the >>>"fair construction of the clause". It gives them power of exclusive legislation in any case within >>>THAT district. What is the meaning of this? What is it opposed to? Is it opposed to the general powers of the federal legislature, or to those of the state legislatures? I understand it as opposed to the legislative power of that state where it shall BE. What, then, is the power? It is, that Congress shall exclusively legislate there, in order to preserve {440} serve the "police" OF THE >>>"PLACE" and their OWN personal independence, that they may not be overawed or insulted, and of course to preserve them in opposition to any attempt by the state where it shall BE this is the >>>"fair construction"." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.142.172.26 (talk) 04:40, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

We don't use primary sources to perform original research. Do you happen to know of any modern, scholarly reliable sources which hold this view?
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► 05:55, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

well South Carolina did NOT consider itself a state of the US in spring 1861 and made no request. It rejected any allegiance to the US Constitution, and indeed it had given all control over its foreign affairs to the Confederacy. Rjensen (talk) 06:21, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

I do believe… That the legitimacy of this position was one of the issues the war was supposed to address. You may or may not agree with the fairness, accuracy, or legal gravitas of the final verdict, but it the end it was Union Blue that won the argument, not Confederate Grey. (FWIW- I put my OWN feelings on this matter aside when this issue is brought up, because BOTH sides did enough lying for themselves to cover both in a pile of ‘manure’ three feet thick.) A. J. REDDSON