He would try threats first, and if these failed he would bombard the fort into submission. Alerted, General P.G.T Beauregard, commander of the Confederate military forces, realized he had to quickly force the evacuation of the fort before the relief expedition's arrival. The President ordered a relief expedition to sail immediately and informed the Governor of South Carolina of his decision. The garrison was running out of food and supplies and had no way of obtaining these on shore. Lincoln learned that the garrison at Fort Sumter was in trouble on the day he took office in March 1861.

For President Lincoln the voluntary abandonment of this fortress was equally intolerable as it would be a tacit acknowledgment of South Carolina's independent status. Fort Sumter, lying in the harbor off the city of Charleston, South Carolina, would prove the point.Īfter her secession from the Union, South Carolina perceived herself as a sovereign state - the presence of Union forces in an armed fortress whose guns commanded her principal harbor was intolerable as it belied her independence. The majority of the Southern leaders who attended the convention expected a peaceful secession they did not anticipate that their action would lead to bloody conflict. By the time of the convening of a constitutional convention to establish the Confederacy in February 1861, six other states had joined her. The election of Abraham Lincoln in November 1860 provoked the secession of the Southern States from the Union.

Where was taken 3 filmed