And so it begins. At 4:30 AM, Confederate batteries open fire on Fort Sumter off the coast of Charleston, South Carolina. Sumter’s Union garrison returns fire. In the space of mere moments, month-longs apprehension evaporates. The war is on. There is no turning back. The first return fire from Sumter comes from a cannon manned…
U.S. President Abraham Lincoln’s plan to resupply Fort Sumter is in motion, but the Confederacy has served notice that it will not allow the plan to proceed. The time has come. Confederate General Beauregard sends three aides – Colonel James Chesnut, Jr., Captain Stephen D. Lee, and Lieutenant A. R. Chisolm – to demand the…
On the brink of the war, a Confederate company is formed in Cass County, Georgia (now Bartow County). Company H becomes known as Wofford’s 18th Georgia Regiment, named after the W. T. Wofford, the businessman who raised the company. The regiment also later becomes known as the “Rowland Highlanders.” Soon enlisting in Company H is…