Salute marked a turn­ing point in morale and sym­bol­ism for the besieged sol­diers inside Fort Sumter. The atmos­phere inside the fort had grown increas­ing­ly grim, not just because of dwin­dling sup­plies but also from emo­tion­al and psy­cho­log­i­cal exhaus­tion. Asst. Sur­geon Samuel Craw­ford, who had once main­tained an opti­mistic tone in his let­ters, now con­fessed to his broth­er that he felt phys­i­cal­ly and men­tal­ly drained. The intense stress and con­stant antic­i­pa­tion of attack weighed on every man sta­tioned with­in those walls. Craw­ford likened the activ­i­ty across the har­bor to a hive of bees, where the Car­olini­ans worked relent­less­ly on their for­ti­fi­ca­tions, reveal­ing their own ner­vous antic­i­pa­tion of what was com­ing. Despite the sol­diers’ strict rationing of ammu­ni­tion and lim­it­ed resources, what kept them mov­ing was a qui­et sense of pride in their position—even if they sus­pect­ed they might be pawns in a much larg­er polit­i­cal chess match.

The lack of rein­force­ments was a par­tic­u­lar­ly sore sub­ject for many inside the fort, espe­cial­ly for Craw­ford. He crit­i­cized for­mer Pres­i­dent Buchanan’s inde­ci­sion and blamed his pas­sive poli­cies for leav­ing Sumter’s gar­ri­son exposed and iso­lat­ed. Craw­ford believed that Wash­ing­ton was delay­ing action inten­tion­al­ly, hop­ing the Con­fed­er­a­cy would make the first move and there­by shift pub­lic opin­ion against seces­sion­ists. The sol­diers were painful­ly aware of the polit­i­cal games being played beyond their walls, and many feared they were being used to pro­voke a reac­tion rather than defend fed­er­al author­i­ty. Even so, Craw­ford held out hope that if a shot were fired on the fort, it would uni­fy the North in defense of the Union. That act of aggres­sion could final­ly trans­form pas­sive resis­tance into a call to arms, spark­ing a broad­er awak­en­ing in the pub­lic con­scious­ness. There was a sense that his­to­ry was about to pivot—and that they would be the ones stand­ing at its cen­ter.

On Feb­ru­ary 22, Major Ander­son made a bold deci­sion: to fire a cer­e­mo­ni­al salute in hon­or of George Washington’s birth­day. It was a sub­tle yet pro­found state­ment. Thir­ty-four can­nons were fired—one for each state in the Union, includ­ing those that had already seced­ed. The ges­ture was delib­er­ate and unapolo­getic, assert­ing that the Union still con­sid­ered the seced­ed states part of the nation. Craw­ford, who over­saw the cer­e­mo­ni­al act, not­ed how curi­ous Con­fed­er­ate sol­diers sta­tioned in near­by bat­ter­ies watched the event in silence. They did not fire back. The moment hung in the air, dense with unspo­ken questions—was this a provo­ca­tion, a show of strength, or sim­ply a reminder of uni­ty that once exist­ed? For the Union sol­diers, it was a moment of dig­ni­ty and defi­ance. It also demon­strat­ed that morale, while strained, was not entire­ly bro­ken.

How­ev­er, not every­one saw the salute as a ges­ture of hon­or. Mary Ches­nut, the South­ern diarist whose hus­band served as a Con­fed­er­ate offi­cer, expressed her dis­may in her jour­nal. She viewed the act not just as polit­i­cal defi­ance but as an insult to the legit­i­ma­cy of the Con­fed­er­a­cy. Her words con­veyed the depth of ani­mos­i­ty that now divid­ed not only gov­ern­ments but neigh­bors and fam­i­lies. Ander­son­’s choice revealed the com­pli­cat­ed lay­ers of sym­bol­ism at play—where a sim­ple mil­i­tary tra­di­tion could be inter­pret­ed as an act of courage, an insult, or a cry for uni­ty depend­ing on one’s per­spec­tive. While the guns at Sumter had not yet fired in anger, the ide­o­log­i­cal con­flict was already in full swing. The salute became a flash­point, embody­ing both the fort’s resolve and the frag­ile line between cer­e­mo­ny and war.

The psy­cho­log­i­cal strain on Fort Sumter’s gar­ri­son grew more vis­i­ble by the day. Sup­plies were run­ning low, com­mu­ni­ca­tion with Wash­ing­ton was spo­radic, and rein­force­ments had yet to arrive. Yet there was some­thing about that Feb­ru­ary 22 salute that lift­ed spir­its, if only tem­porar­i­ly. It remind­ed the men that they weren’t forgotten—that they were uphold­ing a tra­di­tion, a cause, and a nation­al iden­ti­ty that still mat­tered. Wash­ing­ton’s birth­day served as more than a his­tor­i­cal anniver­sary; it became a ral­ly­ing cry for those hold­ing the line. Even the Con­fed­er­ates, watch­ing from across the water, had to acknowl­edge the audac­i­ty of it. Ander­son and his men stood their ground, sig­nal­ing not just with words but with the thun­der of can­nons that the Union was not ready to yield, even if it stood alone on a crum­bling island in Charleston Har­bor.

In the days fol­low­ing the salute, the calm before the storm per­sist­ed. The Con­fed­er­ate posi­tions con­tin­ued to grow stronger, with new guns being mount­ed and bar­racks rein­forced. Inside the fort, rou­tines became a means of survival—drills, main­te­nance, let­ters home. Yet the sol­diers knew these tasks were tem­po­rary dis­trac­tions. The salute had set a tone, and every­one sensed that it had pushed the stand­off one step clos­er to con­flict. For those inside Fort Sumter, loy­al­ty had ceased to be just about flag or command—it had become a deeply per­son­al choice to hold fast even when the odds were stacked against them. And in doing so, they etched them­selves into the final, qui­et hours before Amer­i­ca would descend into civ­il war.