**Sum­ma­ry of “Fire­wood, The Demon of Unrest”**

In the cold days and nights at Fort Sumter, a storm loomed on the hori­zon. On March 26, Chief Engi­neer Fos­ter report­ed the demo­li­tion of the last tem­po­rary build­ing on the parade, as the fort resort­ed to burn­ing lum­ber and one con­demned gun car­riage for fuel. Out­siders tend­ed to roman­ti­cize the sit­u­a­tion, focus­ing on the hero­ism sur­round­ing Major Ander­son and his vast­ly out­num­bered gar­ri­son, which was often depict­ed as a clas­sic David ver­sus Goliath tale, with Anderson’s forces stand­ing firm against a much larg­er ene­my.

How­ev­er, the real­i­ty faced by Ander­son­’s men was stark and prag­mat­ic. Cap­tain Dou­ble­day, in a mem­o­ran­dum, stressed the impor­tance of crit­i­cal defense mea­sures, detail­ing spe­cif­ic points on the fort’s struc­ture that required vig­i­lance. He sug­gest­ed posi­tion­ing one of the fort’s drums at the cen­ter of each flank to sound the alarm at the first sign of an attack, and even pro­posed con­struct­ing a secure privy to enhance safe­ty.

Ander­son­’s nephew, R.C. Ander­son, found the events thrilling, shar­ing the excite­ment with his chil­dren, who referred to Major Ander­son as “Uncle Robert Major.” R.C. expressed a deep sense of duty and com­mit­ment to his fam­i­ly in his let­ters, stat­ing that had he not had a fam­i­ly to pro­tect, he would have joined his uncle at Fort Sumter, regard­less of the per­ils. This sen­ti­ment under­scored a poignant con­trast, as Major Ander­son also had fam­i­ly respon­si­bil­i­ties to con­sid­er.

In a sep­a­rate let­ter, R.C. can­did­ly con­veyed a deep fear of defeat, stat­ing that the sur­ren­der of Fort Sumter and the rais­ing of South Carolina’s flag in place of the Amer­i­can flag would be a calami­ty too over­whelm­ing for him to bear. Such a mis­for­tune, he argued, would crush his spir­it far more than any per­son­al loss, includ­ing the announce­ment of his uncle’s death, which he believed would not affect him as deeply. This exchange high­lights the emo­tion­al and psy­cho­log­i­cal weight car­ried by those asso­ci­at­ed with the fort dur­ing these tense times.