Second Battle of Fort Sumter

Photograph taken September 8, 1863, shows the breach compromised at Fort Sumter's wall facing Morris Island during bombardment of Fort Sumter. The naval party attempted to enter the fort here.

Date	September 7, 1863 (1863-09-07) – September 8, 1863 (1863-09-08)
Location	Charleston, South Carolina
Result	Confederate victory

Belligerents

United States

Confederate States

Commanders and leaders

Quincy Gillmore

P. G. T. Beauregard

Strength

413

320

Casualties and losses

117

9 killed

The Second Battle of Fort Sumter was fought on September 8, 1863, in Charleston Harbor. Confederate General P. G. T. Beauregard, who had commanded the defenses of Charleston and captured Fort Sumter in the first battle of the war, was in overall command of the defenders. In the battle, Union forces under Major General Quincy Gillmore attempted to retake the fort at the mouth of the harbor. Union gunners pummeled the fort from their batteries on Morris Island. After a severe bombing of the fort, Beauregard suspecting an attack replaced the artillerymen and all but one of the fort's guns with 320 infantrymen, who repulsed the naval landing party. Gillmore had reduced Fort Sumter to a pile of rubble, but the Confederate flag still waved over the ruins.

Union efforts to retake Charleston Harbor began on April 7, 1863, when Rear Admiral Samuel Francis Du Pont, commander of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron, led the ironclad frigate New Ironsides, the tower ironclad Keokuk, and the monitors Weehawken, Pasaic, Montauk, Patapsco, Nantucket, Catskill, and Nahant in an attack on the harbor's defenses (The 1863 Battle of Fort Sumter was the largest deployment of monitors in action up to that time). The attack was unsuccessful, the Union's best ship, USS New Ironsides never effectively engaged, and the ironclads fired only 154 rounds, while receiving 2,209 from the Confederate defenders (Wise 1994, p. 30). Due to damage received in the attack, the USS Keokuk sank the next day, 1,400 yards (1,300 m) off the southern tip of Morris Island. Over the next month, working at night to avoid the attention of the Federal squadron, the Confederates salvaged Keokuk's two eleven-inch Dahlgren guns (Ripley 1984, pp. 93–6). One of the Dahlgren guns was promptly placed in Fort Sumter.

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