On Bloody Sun­day, April 14, 1861, the weath­er was warm and bright, set­ting the stage for one of the most piv­otal moments in Amer­i­can history—the evac­u­a­tion of Fort Sumter. The antic­i­pa­tion was pal­pa­ble as the Pal­met­to Guard, led by Edmund Ruf­fin, board­ed a steam­er, join­ing a large crowd of spec­ta­tors who had gath­ered along the har­bor to wit­ness the depar­ture of Major Ander­son and his gar­ri­son. The orig­i­nal­ly planned 9 a.m. evac­u­a­tion was delayed, extend­ing the wait into the after­noon. As the clock ticked, Major Ander­son board­ed the Cataw­ba, prepar­ing to trans­fer his men to the Isabel, which would then take them to the await­ing Baltic. As Ander­son pre­pared to leave, ques­tions arose about a can­non salute to mark the occa­sion. Respond­ing emo­tion­al­ly, Ander­son stat­ed, “No, it is one hun­dred, and those are scarce­ly enough,” before suc­cumb­ing to tears. His words, full of regret and sor­row, under­scored the emo­tion­al toll of the day and the pro­found loss felt by the Union as they relin­quished con­trol of Fort Sumter.

Dur­ing the wait, Ruf­fin took note of the fort’s resilience, observ­ing how it had sur­vived the intense bom­bard­ment large­ly unscathed. Despite the heavy can­non fire direct­ed at the fort, there was lit­tle dam­age, which con­trast­ed sharply with the heavy emo­tion­al weight of the moment. By near­ly 3 p.m., the first of the expect­ed hun­dred can­nons rang out, mark­ing the offi­cial end of Anderson’s time at the fort. The noise echoed across the har­bor, a fit­ting yet somber trib­ute to the con­clu­sion of the stand­off. The atmos­phere shift­ed from one of ten­sion to qui­et con­tem­pla­tion as the cannon’s sound fad­ed away. Mean­while, Cap­tain Dou­ble­day orga­nized the Union sol­diers into their final for­ma­tion, prepar­ing for the low­er­ing of the flag. As planned, the can­non salute began, but tragedy struck when a mis­fire occurred, result­ing in the death of Pri­vate Daniel Hough, who was hit by the blast. The salute was halt­ed imme­di­ate­ly, and a hur­ried bur­ial took place in the midst of the somber moment. The pres­ence of both Con­fed­er­ate and Union sol­diers dur­ing this act of respect empha­sized the human cost of the con­flict that was about to unfold.

After the bur­ial of Pri­vate Hough, the salute resumed, though it was reduced to fifty rounds in hon­or of the fall­en sol­dier. The mood remained somber as the Union sol­diers pre­pared to leave the fort. By 4 p.m., Major Ander­son led his men away from the fort, accom­pa­nied by the tunes of “Yan­kee Doo­dle,” a song that res­onat­ed with the Union sol­diers despite the dif­fi­cult cir­cum­stances. As the pro­ces­sion moved toward their depar­ture, the atmos­phere in the har­bor became more charged with emo­tion. In Charleston, cel­e­bra­tions erupt­ed with fire­works light­ing up the night sky, sig­ni­fy­ing the Con­fed­er­ate vic­to­ry and the begin­ning of a new chap­ter for the South. The Con­fed­er­ate vic­to­ry, achieved with­out a sin­gle loss of life dur­ing the bom­bard­ment, was per­ceived as a tri­umph. This moment sym­bol­ized South­ern strength and resolve, sig­nal­ing the start of a fierce and uncer­tain future. How­ev­er, the irony of the day lay in the fact that despite the count­less can­non­balls exchanged dur­ing the bom­bard­ment, no one had died in the con­flict itself. This peace­ful yet emo­tion­al­ly charged sur­ren­der marked the begin­ning of a civ­il war that would soon esca­late, claim­ing the lives of hun­dreds of thou­sands and alter­ing the course of Amer­i­can his­to­ry for­ev­er. Bloody Sun­day, there­fore, was a day of dual mean­ings: a sym­bol of both tri­umph and tragedy that fore­shad­owed the dev­as­ta­tion that would come in the years ahead. The day itself set the stage for the war’s deep divi­sions and the vio­lent con­flict that would even­tu­al­ly define the nation’s future.