Exactly 150 years later, Fort Sumter is once again at the center of a national crisis.<\/p>\n
The day after Christmas, 1860, U.S. Major Robert Anderson made his move, quietly.\u00a0 South Carolina had seceded from the Union, and Anderson’s federal soldiers could not defend their position at Fort Moultrie on the Charleston mainland.\u00a0 So they secretly moved with their supplies to Fort Sumter, a more substantial fortress on an island in Charleston Harbor.\u00a0 In January, 1861, when the Union supply ship Star of the West<\/em> attempted to reach Fort Sumter, she was fired on by confederate batteries in Charleston and had to turn back. \u00a0With Anderson and his men surrounded, the resupply of Fort Sumter became the first crisis of Abraham Lincoln’s young administration.\u00a0 Several months passed and the situation became dire.\u00a0 In April, 1861, confederate general Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard gave Anderson an ultimatum: surrender Fort Sumter immediately or be fired upon.\u00a0 Though he was running out of food and supplies, Anderson refused.\u00a0 On April 12, 1861, at 4:30 in the morning, confederate cannon roared.\u00a0 The Civil War had begun.<\/p>\n And now, history is threatening to not repeat itself.\u00a0 With the Civil War Sesquicentennial approaching, the world has looked to Charleston.\u00a0 The city has been preparing for a massive commemoration.\u00a0 Visitors are arriving from all over the world.\u00a0 The hotels are expected to be full.\u00a0 Taverns and restaurants are ready for their guests,\u00a0 There will be theme dinners, concerts, seminars and tours.\u00a0 And…with only 4 days to go to the big day…the whole thing… might be a bust.<\/p>\n That’s because if Congress can’t come to an agreement on a new budget today, the National Park Service will shut down on Saturday. \u00a0No Yosemite, no Mount Rushmore, no Smithsonian, no National Zoo.\u00a0 But most painfully, on the 150th<\/sup> anniversary of the start of our nation’s bloodiest conflict, Washington will have once again failed to provide critical supplies to Fort Sumter, and it will have to close.\u00a0 Hundreds of union and confederate re-enactors planning to camp at Forts Moultrie and Sumter may have to pitch tents elsewhere.\u00a0 Historic interpreters are scrambling.\u00a0 Tours are being re-routed, conferences re-scheduled.\u00a0 There are plans to move some 30 cannons from federal property onto private lands in time to re-enact the war’s opening bombardment.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0But all of the activities in and around the forts will be canceled.\u00a0 “This is a pivotal event in the nation’s history,” said Jeff Antley who is coordinating arrangements for an estimated 1,000 re-enactors coming to the city. “The money has been spent. The uniforms have been bought. The travel arrangements have been\u00a0made.\u00a0 You can’t say we’re going to reschedule for May. ”<\/p>\n This morning, as the sun rises over Fort Sumter, Charleston looks to Washington, and holds its breath.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Exactly 150 years later, Fort Sumter is once again at the center of a national crisis. The day after Christmas, 1860, U.S. Major Robert Anderson made his move, quietly.\u00a0 South Carolina had seceded from the Union, and Anderson’s federal soldiers could not defend their position at Fort Moultrie on the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[186,232,259,449,1109,1317],"class_list":["post-111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-6","tag-budget","tag-charleston","tag-civil-war","tag-fort-sumter","tag-sesquicentennial","tag-washington"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}