Magazine Articles, True Stories, Fictionalized Accounts of Actual Experiences
Charleston Under Fire — In January 1861, a civilian named John William De Forest returned to Charleston after an extended absence as a passenger aboard the inbound steamer Columbia out of New York City. After several days in the city, he departed aboard the same vessel, which grounded at Sullivan’s Island when trying to cross the shallow bar at the outer part of the harbor. Before making his way back to Charleston, he took the opportunity to “tour” Fort Moultrie, now in the hands of South Carolinians. His narrative was originally published in Atlantic Monthly, April 1861.
- Part 1
- Part 2
- Part 3
- Part 4
- Article is available at The Atlantic (accessed 1-25-21)
Hospital Sketches — A fictionalized account by Louisa May Alcott that is true to her actual experiences volunteering for and serving as a hospital nurse in the civil war.
Inside Fort Sumter from the perspective of an artillery sergeant — Career soldier James Chester was an artillery sergeant at Fort Sumter when Confederate forces fired on the fort in April 1861. Later, as a captain, he penned reminisces of that time:
- First Scenes of the Civil War (1), The United Service. A Monthly Review of Military and Naval Affairs, May 1884, covering Fort Moultrie, the evacuation, and life at Fort Sumter
- First Scenes of the Civil War (2), The United Service. A Monthly Review of Military and Naval Affairs, June 1884, covering Fort Sumter, preparing for defense, bombardment, ceasefire, and aftermath. (While published, this is an interim version. The text is mostly complete. Additional proofing and clarification is needed as well as more illustrations.)
- Inside Sumter in ’61, an essay in Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, edited by Clarence Clough Buel and Robert Underwood Johnson, Vol. 1. New York, NY: The Century Co., 1887.
The Last Days of John Brown by Henry David Thoreau—Eulogy read at Brown commemoration in North Elba, New York, July 4, 1860.
Reminiscences of Forts Sumter and Moultrie — A first person account by Abner Doubleday of the days and weeks leading up to and including the bombardment of Fort Sumter that marked the beginning of the American Civil War.
- Introduction
- Chapter I – Fort Moultrie in 1860
- Chapter II – Preparations for Defense
- Chapter III – Preliminary Movements of the Secessionists
- Chapter IV – The Removal to Fort Sumter
- Chapter V – The First Overt Act
- Chapter VI – Effect of Anderson’s Movement
- Chapter VII – The “Star of the West”
- Chapter VIII – A Resort to Diplomacy
- Chapter IX – The Crisis at Hand
- Chapter X – The Bombardment
- Chapter XI – The Evacuation
- Appendix
- Document is also at pddoc.com
The Romance of the Civil War — Selections from a 1903 “reader” textbook for 4th and 5th-grade students. “If the Civil War was worth fighting…, it is worthwhile for children of the present day (1903) to know some of the men and women of that time.”
Why I wrote it — (1864) by Louisa W. Barker, a young woman’s story of growing up in the South, going to school and living in the North when the war began, returning South, marriage, loss of her rebel husband, returning North and struggles of a single mother in a new place.