Description
Carte view and clipped signature of General Robert Anderson. When South Carolina seceded In December 1860, Major Anderson, a pro-slavery, former slave-owner from Kentucky, remained loyal to the Union. He was the commanding officer of United States Army forces in Charleston, South Carolina, the last remaining important Union post in the Confederacy. He moved his small garrison from Fort Moultrie, which was indefensible, to the more modern, more defensible, Fort Sumter in the middle of Charleston Harbor. South Carolina leaders cried betrayal, while the North celebrated with enormous excitement at this show of defiance against secessionism. In February 1861, the Confederate States of America was formed and took charge. Jefferson Davis, the Confederate President, ordered the fort be captured. The artillery attack was commanded by Brig. Gen. P. G. T. Beauregard, who had been Anderson’s student at West Point. The attack began April 12, 1861, and continued until Anderson, badly outnumbered and outgunned, surrendered the fort on April 14th. His actions in defense of Fort Sumter made him an immediate national hero. He was promoted to brigadier general, effective May 15. Anderson took the fort’s 33-star flag with him to New York City, where he participated in a Union Square patriotic rally that was the largest public gathering in North America up to that time. At the conclusion of the war, Anderson returned to Sumter and raised the very same flag he had removed 4 years earlier. This is one of the harder view of the general to find. There is a small stain to the right side. It does however have an original clipped signature from Anderson affixed to the bottom of the carte. A very nice view and back marked by Brady as well.
