Major Anderson Returns
Reading edition
On April 14, 1865, Robert Anderson, now a retired brigadier general, returned to Fort Sumter to raise again the flag he had pulled down 4 years before. The guns of the harbor thundered in salute. In an address before the throng of spectators brought down from New York, Henry Ward Beecher said:
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Raising the original flag at Fort Sumter, April 14, 1865. Contemporary artist’s sketch from French and Cary, The Trip of the Steamer Oceanus to Fort Sumter.
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“We raise our fathers’ banner, that it may bring back better blessings than those of old, that it may cast out the devil of discord; that it may restore lawful government and a prosperity purer and more enduring than that which it protected before; that it may win parted friends from their alienation; that it may inspire hope and inaugurate universal liberty; ... that it may heal all jealousies, unite all policies, inspire a new national life, compact our strength, purify our principles, ennoble our national ambitions, and make this people great and strong ... for the peace of the world....”
That night, with tragic coincidence, an assassin’s bullet felled Abraham Lincoln in Washington.
Horizontal section, Fort Sumter, February 1865. The Gorge is at the base of the plan. Courtesy National Archives.