Booknotes: Thunder in the Harbor

New Arrival:

• Thunder in the Harbor: Fort Sumter and the Civil War by Richard W. Hatcher, III (Savas Beatie, 2024).

The crisis that developed around Fort Sumter during the momentous "Secession Winter" of 1860-61 and the bombardment and surrender of the Charleston Harbor facility in April 1861 have been explored in several full-length studies, some of them quite good. Richard Hatcher's Thunder in the Harbor: Fort Sumter and the Civil War, however, extends the fort's history through the rest of the conflict and beyond. Indeed, Hatcher recounts the entire active history of the fort, from initial construction through the aftermath of World War Two. In 1948, the fort was formally incorporated into the NPS as Fort Sumter National Monument.

While the intensity of federal land and sea assaults against it waxed and waned, Fort Sumter was under Union guns for almost the entire duration of the war. From the description: "After its surrender, Southern troops immediately occupied and improved Sumter’s defenses. The U.S. blockaded Charleston Harbor and for two years the fort, with its 84 heavy guns and a 500-man garrison, remained mostly untested. That changed in July 1863 when a powerful combined operation set its sights on the fort, Charleston, and its outer defenses. The result was a grueling 22-month land and sea siege—the longest of the Civil War. The complex effort included ironclad attacks, land assaults, raiding parties, and siege operations. Some of the war’s most famous events unfolded there, including the assault against Battery Wagner, led by the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment (depicted in the movie Glory), the shelling of the city by the “Swamp Angel,” and the beginning of submarine warfare when the H. L. Hunley sank the USS Housatonic and was herself lost at sea. The destruction of Fort Sumter remained a key Federal objective throughout the siege. Despite repeated concentrated bombardments of the fort and the city, Sumter never fell." Of course, all of those events are covered in the book.

Federal control of Fort Sumter resumed in February 1865, only after Charleston itself was evacuated by Confederate forces in the face of Sherman's approaching army. The campaign against the "Cradle of Secession" was the longest of the war. More from the description: "Hatcher, the former historian at Fort Sumter Fort Moultrie National Historical Park, mined a host of primary sources to produce an in-depth and fascinating account of the intricacies, complexities, and importance of this campaign to the overall war effort."

But the book doesn't end there. After the conclusion of the Civil War, Sumter continued to the serve the government. More: "During the eight decades that followed, the United States invested millions of dollars and thousands of hours rebuilding and rearming the fort to face potential foreign threats in three different wars. By the end of World War II, sea and air power had made Sumter obsolete, and the fort was transferred to the National Park Service."