The newly elected governor of South Carolina, Francis W. Pickens, ordered the local Charleston militia, under Captain Charles Simonton, to patrol the harbor and to challenge and if need be sink any boats attempting to move federal troops between Forts Moultrie and Sumter. If this were to happen, he was himself to occupy Fort Sumter immediately. Simonton commandeered a small steamer and began his patrols immediately. The patrol did not operate the night a week later when Major Anderson consolidated on Fort Sumter. (By John Osborne)
Source Citation
Samuel Wylie Crawford, The Genesis of the Civil War: The Story of Sumter, 1860-1861 (New York: Charles L. Webster and Company, 1887), 88.
Record Data
Date Certainty
Exact
Type
Battles/Soldiers
