Before the Guns of Sumter (el. knyga) (skaityta knyga) | knygos.lt

Aprašymas

For more than 160 years, the challenges, sacrifices, and heroism of the wives and children of the enlisted men of Fort Sumter have remained mostly unknown. Historian Jo Ann Daly Carr has uncovered their remarkable story and brings it to life in Before the Guns of Sumter: Federal Women in Charleston, the Secession Crisis, and the Civil War, 1860-1861.

Scores of families found themselves trapped as the threat of secession and war swept through Charleston. Despite the dangers facing them, the wives of the officers flouted the rules and restrictions imposed on them. After receiving letters from Maj. Robert Anderson, for example, Eliza Anderson visited President James Buchanan in December of 1860 to urge him to send reinforcements to the threatened troops. She even sought an audience with Senator Jefferson Davis. Mary Moale Foster's news of the supply situation at Fort Sumter, shared with various generals (including Winfield Scott, who called her "a true heroine"), played a role in the decision to send the Star of the West to relieve the besieged bastion.

Events continued to worsen. On the day after Christmas in 1860, just six days after South Carolina left the Union, women and children said farewell to their soldier-husbands at Fort Moultrie (which was supposedly under threat of attack) so they could be shipped to the safety of Fort Johnson. What they did not know was that it was a ruse orchestrated by Major Anderson. Unable to move his command and needing supplies any other way, the fort's commander stuffed armaments and other necessities into the holds of the ships, populated them with civilians, and delivered them to Sumter.

Carr draws on scores of archival collections, letters, diaries, family stories, memoirs, newspapers, and other accounts to reveal the long-forgotten story of these women and children and their husbands and fathers. Before the Guns of Sumter admirably fills a gap in the literature. It is a welcome arrival for those who enjoy reading about the secession crisis, the early days of the Civil War, and women in American history.