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Book Reviews These are some reviews from a recent issue of
The Civil War News:
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Allegiance: Fort Sumter, Charleston, and the Beginning of the Civil War
by David Detzer.
Illustrated, notes, bibliography, 384 pp., 2001. Harcourt Inc., 15 East 26th St., New York, NY 10010, $27 plus shipping.
Instead, Detzer concentrates on telling the story of what was happening in Charleston through the actions of real people. The book’s central figure, obviously a hero to the author, is Maj. Robert Anderson, commander of Fort Moultrie. Anderson, a Kentuckian who is sympathetic to Southerners, was foremost a man dedicated to the Union. He was also a man not afraid to do what he thought best to preserve that Union. But most fun for the reader is discovering that Anderson was a crafty man. Most histories of the war spend little time describing the details of how Anderson moved his garrison from Fort Moultrie on Sullivan’s Island to Fort Sumter in the middle of Charleston Harbor the day after Christmas 1860. What the author does is take the reader step by step through Anderson’s apparently well-documented thought process. Anderson realized more than a month in advance that he would eventually be forced to put some distance between himself and the South Carolinians. He carefully planned days in advance for the move, even sending supplies in boats that he told anyone who would listen were destined for women and children he intended to transfer to Fort Johnson on the mainland. In reality, Anderson had told his officer commanding the clandestine supply mission to hightail it for Fort Sumter once he heard a signal cannon. Anderson even had military equipment transferred from Fort Sumter to Fort Moultrie in full view of spies in order to put them at ease. What the spies did not see was the same equipment going back to Fort Sumter in the dead of night. There are other fascinating characters who emerge from the dust to entertain the reader. There is President James Buchanan who complains that his critics do not give him time to pray about what he should do about the deteriorat-ing situation in South Carolina. There is Secretary of War John Floyd, suspected of intentionally putting arms in the South so they could be cap-tured in the event of war with the North, attending cabinet meetings and acting like a cabinet member even after be-ing fired by the President. There is commanding general Winfield Scott suggesting to the President that he thinks the country would be better off if it splits into four geographic confederacies, but he is also willing to defend the United States. There is South Carolina Governor Francis Pickens flying into a rage that Anderson’s men burned the gun carriages at Fort Moultrie — destroying South Carolina government property! But dominating them all is Anderson, from beginning to end. This is a very detailed look at one place — Charles-ton — at one time, November 1860 through April 1861. It is a limited history, but an entertaining one.
Clint Johnson
Clint Johnson's latest book is In The Footsteps of Robert E. Lee. His other books in-clude Touring Virginia's and West Virginia's Civil War Sites, Civil War Blunders, and Tour-ing the Carolinas' Civil War Sites.
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