And That's the Way It Was

In April, nearly four months after the U.S. soldiers at Ft. Sumter had first asked for instructions from their superiors (as well as for food and provisions), the local commander of Confederate troops (General P.G.T. Beauregard) asked U.S. Army Major Robert Anderson how much longer he intended to stay at the fort. Anderson replied that it couldn't be much longer, since he and his men were about out of food. President Abraham Lincoln then revealed to Confederate President Jefferson Davis that a U.S. supply ship was again on the way - but this time, it was accompanied by U.S. war ships! Upon hearing that news, Davis instructed Beauregard to demand that U.S. troops at the fort leave immediately or prepare to be fired upon by the Confederates. The rest, as they say, is history.

The Ticking Time Bomb

The U.S. soldiers at Ft. Sumter continued to await instructions from Washington on whether to abandon the fort. To help move things along, South Carolina's governor sent an envoy to U.S. President James Buchanan, requesting that the U.S. troops abandon the fort. If that request was denied, the envoy was instructed to offer to purchase the fort from the U.S. Government. The president refused both requests. By April, Abraham Lincoln had taken office and the issue was now his problem. To compound things, six southern states had joined South Carolina in seceding and had formed a confederacy. The battle of the wills had intensified and was sure to end badly.

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.