**Sum­ma­ry of “A Ball at Sun­rise”**

On the morn­ing of March 8, Con­fed­er­ate artillery sta­tioned at Fort Moul­trie and Cum­mings Point ini­ti­at­ed fire, seem­ing­ly as a prac­tice drill. Ini­tial­ly, the first three shots fired were blank, fol­lowed by addi­tion­al blank dis­charges until an unex­pect­ed real shot soared through the air, land­ing dan­ger­ous­ly close to Fort Sumter. This can­non­ball struck the water about thir­ty yards from the fort, ric­o­chet­ing and dam­ag­ing Sumter’s wharf, which led to a swift response from the fort’s guards.

As the shot alarmed a Ger­man-born sol­dier, he prompt­ly closed the main gate, trig­ger­ing an alert at the fort. The long roll sound­ed, prompt­ing gun­nery teams to rush to their posts, ready­ing them­selves for bat­tle as Assis­tant Sur­geon Craw­ford not­ed in his jour­nal. Major Ander­son and oth­er offi­cers were posi­tioned on the para­pet, observ­ing the con­fu­sion among the Con­fed­er­ate gun­ners, who appeared more fright­ened than the Sumter forces. Con­fed­er­ate sol­diers, clad in their uni­forms, fled in pan­ic from their own bat­ter­ies, leav­ing behind only the hors­es as they tried to escape the forth­com­ing return fire.

Rec­og­niz­ing that the can­non­ball inci­dent seemed acci­den­tal, Ander­son chose to refrain from retal­ia­to­ry fire, and laugh­ter replaced ten­sion with­in the fort’s ranks. The feel­ing was light­heart­ed enough that break­fast was pri­or­i­tized over con­flict. How­ev­er, Ander­son desired an apol­o­gy for the inci­dent; no imme­di­ate response was forth­com­ing until a Con­fed­er­ate boat arrived lat­er that morn­ing, bear­ing an offi­cer with a white flag.

This emis­sary, Major Peter F. Stevens, admit­ted the fir­ing was acci­den­tal and attrib­uted the mishap to a load­ing error dur­ing drills. Despite the ten­sions, the dis­cus­sion remained civ­il, with Ander­son express­ing a desire to avoid esca­la­tion while Cap­tain Dou­ble­day and oth­ers with­in Sumter were keen to engage in bat­tle. As Stevens depart­ed, he expressed hope that the inci­dent would remain a sin­gu­lar occur­rence, to which Ander­son sub­tly con­firmed that the shot had not struck the fort, although lat­er reflec­tions by Craw­ford revealed that it near­ly could have.