Big Red

So the U.S. soldiers at Fort Sumter sat and waited for several weeks for some word from their superiors as to whether they should pack up and leave. Finally, on January 9, 1861, they saw help on the way - a merchant ship bringing them food and supplies appeared on the horizon! However, a group of cadets from the South Carolina Military Academy (now known as The Citadel) were positioned on nearby Morris Island and saw the ship coming. They fired at "The Star of the West," and the ship turned around and left, without making its delivery. (Some people consider this event the first shot of the Civil War, even though the war didn't officially begin until three months later.) The cadets on the island flew a red banner which resembled the state's flag - with a palmetto tree in the middle and crescent in the upper left corner. In the generations since then, Citadel cadets have used the design as their spirit flag and called it "Big Red." Recently, the original flag was discovered in a museum in Iowa which had received it as a donation from a Civil War veteran. The Citadel will have the real Big Red on loan to it for the next four years and will display it in the Alumni Center.