**Sum­ma­ry of “The Angel of Death, The Demon of Unrest” Chap­ter**

On April 12, 1861, Cap­tain Gus­tavus Fox aboard the *Baltic* arrived at his fleet’s ren­dezvous point off Charleston in treach­er­ous weath­er. He was expect­ing to see lights from the oth­er ships, espe­cial­ly the *Powhatan*, but it was still too dark, and there was no sign of them. Dur­ing his search, the *Baltic* was near­ly ground­ed on Rat­tlesnake Shoal but man­aged to break free. Only one ship, the *Har­ri­et Lane*, was present, and it faced crew dis­sent after being giv­en sealed orders to assume a naval role, prompt­ing a con­fronta­tion with its cap­tain, John Faunce, who demand­ed obe­di­ence. Even­tu­al­ly, the crew com­plied, and the ship con­tin­ued toward Charleston.

Mean­while, at Fort Sumter, Cap­tain Dou­ble­day pre­pared for a loom­ing con­fronta­tion after receiv­ing an ulti­ma­tum from Con­fed­er­ate offi­cers. He chose not to fire until dawn due to the lack of vis­i­bil­i­ty. In Charleston, antic­i­pa­tion built as spec­ta­tors gath­ered to wit­ness the immi­nent bom­bard­ment, with a heavy silence per­me­at­ing the crowd, described by Cap­tain Fer­gu­son as feel­ing like the “Angel of Death” was present.

At 4 AM, a “long roll” sig­nal prompt­ed the Con­fed­er­ate troops on Mor­ris Island to awak­en and pre­pare for bat­tle. As rain fell, they await­ed the fir­ing sig­nal, which was delayed until 4:30 AM. The first shell fired illu­mi­nat­ed the dark sky, lead­ing Ruf­fin to fire back at Fort Sumter, which still remained silent despite con­tin­u­ous bom­bard­ment.

Despite the Con­fed­er­ate guns rain­ing shells on Fort Sumter from mul­ti­ple direc­tions, the fort did not return fire for two hours, caus­ing con­cern among the attack­ers. Cap­tain Dou­ble­day, ini­tial­ly awok­en by assaults on the fort’s struc­ture, even­tu­al­ly rose from his quar­ters to face the ongo­ing bar­rage. Bom­bard­ment con­tin­ued relent­less­ly, with Con­fed­er­ate mor­tars launch­ing shells that land­ed heav­i­ly with­in the fort, cre­at­ing chaos amidst the stead­fast yet unre­spon­sive defense of Sumter.

At Mrs. Gidiere’s board­ing house, Mary Ches­nut, along with oth­er board­ers, watched the unfold­ing events from a rooftop, invok­ing mixed reac­tions of fear and fer­vor in the air, cul­mi­nat­ing in a moment where she almost caught fire but was swift­ly helped.

The stage was set for a his­toric con­fronta­tion, defined by ten­sion, antic­i­pa­tion, and the des­per­ate cries of those on both sides of the con­flict.