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Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. Exterior view of Fort Sumter

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Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. Exterior view of Fort Sumter

description

Summary

Caption from negative sleeve: Fort Sumter, Charleston Harbor, S.C.
Two plates form left (LC-B811-3462B) and right (LC-B811-3462A) halves of a stereograph pair.
Left plate (LC-B811-3462B) was formerly paired with LC-B811-3463A. They were exchanged because the shadows did not match (Source: Steve Woolf, February 2019).
Credit line: Civil war photographs, 1861-1865, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.
General information about Civil war photographs is available at loc.gov
Forms part of: Civil war photographs, 1861-1865 (Library of Congress).

Named after revolutionary hero General Thomas Sumter, Fort Sumter was unfinished when the Civil War began. On December 26, 1860, six days after South Carolina seceded from the Union, U.S. Army Major Robert Anderson secretly relocated 127 men of the 1st U.S. Artillery to Fort Sumter thinking that it provides a stronger defense against South Carolina militia attacks. For a few months, South Carolina 's calls for evacuation of Fort Sumter were ignored by Union. On Friday, April 12, 1861, at 4:30 a.m., Confederate batteries opened fire on the fort, firing for 34 straight hours. After two hours, the Union started firing back slowly to conserve ammunition. During the fire, one Confederate soldier and two Union soldiers died. The next day the fort was surrendered. The Fort Sumter Union Flag became a popular patriotic symbol. Efforts to retake the fort began on April 7, 1863. After bombardment, the Union navy's started poorly planned boat assault: 8 Union sailors were killed, 19 wounded, and 105 captured. The Confederates did not suffer any casualties. The bombardment of the fort proceeded with a varying degree of intensity until the end of the war but the fort never surrendered. Sherman's advance forced the Confederates to evacuate Charleston and abandon Fort Sumter. The Union formally took possession of Fort Sumter on February 22, 1865. Fort Sumter was in ruins. After the war, the U.S. Army restored the fort and used it as a military installation until 1948 when the fort became a National Monument.

During the Civil War, photographers produced thousands of stereoviews. Stereographs were popular during American Civil War. A single glass plate negative capture both images using a Stereo camera. Prints from these negatives were intended to be looked at with a special viewer called a stereoscope, which created a three-dimensional ("3-D") image. This collection includes glass stereograph negatives, as well as stereograph card prints.

date_range

Date

01/01/1865
place

Location

united states
create

Source

Library of Congress
copyright

Copyright info

No known restrictions on publication. For information, see "Civil war photographs, 1861-1865," http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/120_cwar.html

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