Battle of Fort Sumter

Good morning fourth graders.

Today we're going to be talking about the battle of

fort Sumpter, which is the very first battle in the

american civil war.

Now, so far up to date.

We talked a lot about the compromises and all the

other facts that led up to the civil war.

Lot of those things included the division of the country,

which happened to be because of slavery, the south wanting

to become their own region and have their own president

and government.

And we talked about the addition of the new states

thanks to those three compromises.

So today we're going to be talking about the very

first battle of the civil war, which is the battle

of Fort Sumpter.

It is the first definitive battle from the north against

the south.

And we're going to be talking about the key players

in this battle, who were the people that were responsible

for it.

And we're going to be talking about some background knowledge

just a little bit as a refresher strategy is that

the winning team used to win and the results of

the battle today.

So without further ado here we go.

So as you can see this battle happened in 1861

1861 was the start of the Battle of Fort Sumpter.

Now remember the election of the four candidates that we

talked about earlier, including Abraham Lincoln, Stephen, Douglas, john low

regard and john bell, We're from 1860, meaning it was

one year before this battle happened.

So president Lincoln is officially the president as of right

now, but we're going to put a pin in that

for now because he is the president of the Union.

To remember that this battle of Fort Sumpter happens in

charleston harbor south Carolina.

Now, if you look at a map, you can see

south Carolina is in the confederacy area of the map,

meaning it's in the south.

So, to fight this battle, some of the armies of

the Union go to the south to try to invade

this port, which is in fort Sumpter, the regions.

At this point, we're already divided between the Union and

the confederacy.

So the two different sides already had different leaders and

we're prepared to fight for the country and for their

independence or Union of the States again, Alrighty, now, do

you remember that pin that I told you to keep

in? We're going to take that pin out.

And now you can see Abraham Lincoln is the very

first leader in the very first key player of the

battle of fort Sumpter.

Now, Abraham Lincoln was the Union president, meaning he was

supposed to be the president of the entire United States,

but then the south decided to secede or leave the

Union and that's how they formed their own area, which

is the confederacy.

So he's still the president.

But now those United States is divided between two sections.

Okay, now if you skip over to, you'll see Jefferson

Davis as the confederate president.

Now we talked about the confederacy wanting all new parts

that a country would get when they're becoming independent, meaning

they wanted a new president, they want a new government,

they wanted a new capital and they certainly wanted new

laws. We talked about in our last lesson that the

laws were a huge reason as to why the South

left the Union.

So now there are two presidents of the United States

because the states are divided.

Abraham Lincoln, is that union President and Jefferson Davis is

the confederacy president.

No, neither of these men are the ones on the

battlefield That leads us to the second player on the

list and the 4th player on the list, we have

Major robert Anderson, the union military leader, Mr Anderson worked

under Abraham Lincoln, meaning he led the Union army during

Fort Sumpter and for the rest of the battles in

the civil war.

On the other hand, we have General Pt Beauregard, which

was a confederate leader, meaning he was in charge of

the strategies for the south.

Now, ironically, Mr Anderson was the mentor of PT Beauregard

and PT Beauregard was his student.

So it was the mentor and the mentee that we're

going against each other during the Battle of Fort Sumpter

and for a majority of the battles in the civil

war, because this is the first battle of the civil

war. Both generals wanted to set the tone for what

the war would hope to look like.

So because the north invaded the south in south Carolina,

the south gave them one chance to change their mind.

On april 12th 18 61 General Beauregard sent a message

to Major Anderson telling him that the confederate army would

bombard the Union army if the Union did not surrender.

The south had the Union cornered at this point, they

had made sure they were cut off from all of

their resources and there was no way out.

Mr Anderson wanted to keep his troops safe so he

wanted to find a way where he didn't have to

surrender, but he also Didn't have any of his troops

hurt. So he was trying to stall and instead of

doing that surrender on April 12, he decided to go

against it.

And because of that, the Union decided to follow through

with their promise and bombard fort Sumpter.

Now there were a lot of bombs headed towards them.

There was a lot of fire and smoke everywhere thanks

to this battle.

But luckily nobody got hurt and Major Anderson surrendered to

the confederacy

Battle of Fort Sumter

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