Ft Sumter

Fort Sumter is the place where the American Civil War started, and is today a National Monument. I'd been there all the way back in 1998, so it was a welcome reacquaintance with an important piece of American History.

I started out at the visitor center, which is also where you buy tickets to the Fort, which lies out in the harbor, quite some distance from Charleston proper. I then took the boat out to the manmade island (it was built with rocks from New England, there was only an underwater sand bank there before) and took some pics, then I went back again. I really need to spend more time in the actual city of Charleston.

Pics here.

Abraham Lincoln's actual views on African Americans. He was, like most people of his time, a ranting, raving racist. Always nice to remember when he's glorified as a flawless preserver of the Union and a great emancipator of the black in America.


This flag is an exact copy of the one that flew above Ft Sumter when it was under attack. Yes, it's fuckin' ginormous.


The fortress had two more storeys back during the time of the Civil War. Almost everything you see there today was built during the war against the Spanish in the late 1890s.


The interior.


The cannon that first fired upon the fort was one like this. The commander of the Union fort had been the artillery instructor at West Point, of the commander of the southern troops that fired upon it.


The ship that brought us out there.