“Evacuation of Fort Moultrie by Major Anderson and the United States Troops on Christmas Night, 1860 —The Troops Conveying Powder and other Stores in Sloops to Fort Sumpter”1,2,3
This is an artist’s imagined rendering of an actual event.
William Waud’s imagined scene of the evacuation4
Imagined scene of the evacuation of Fort Moultrie by Anderson’s two U.S. Artillery companies on the evening of December 26, 1860, as depicted more than three weeks later in Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper — from a sketch forwarded by the “special artist” which its publisher had subsequently dispatched to report from Charleston, William Waud.
However, Waud’s English colleague Thomas Butler Gunn would note on Page 28 of Volume 14 of his personal Diaries, how Waud did not actually reach Charleston until ten days after this particular event, so of course did not personally witness the evacuation. And in fact, all historical accounts coincide on that Moultrie’s Federal garrison had not exited their fort by descending the peacetime staircase on its western rampart — as illustrated here by Waud — but rather had simply marched out of its main Guardhouse gates on the north side, which were then shut behind them by the small sapper-party which was to remain inside overnight to complete various acts of sabotage. Capt. Abner Doubleday, for example, would record fifteen years later on Pages 64-65 of his 1876 Reminiscences how:
Everything being in readiness, we passed out of the main gates, and silently made our way for about a quarter of a mile to a spot where the boats were hidden behind an irregular pile of rocks, which originally formed part of the sea-wall. There was not a single human being in sight as we marched to the rendezvous, and we had the extraordinary good luck to be wholly unobserved.
Note: that the peacetime staircase pictured by Waud had in all likelihood been removed during the outnumbered Federal garrison’s efforts to strengthen their defenses, and only restored to the fort’s western rampart once South Carolinian forces had occupied Moultrie — which is how Waud saw and recorded its appearance in January 1861.
- “Evacuation of Fort Moultrie.” Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper. January 19, 1891.
- Special handed-tinted off-prints were also sold separately from the weekly newspapers. Numerous originals are held today by public institutions and in private collections.
- This image has been digitally adjusted for one or more of the following:
– fade correction,
– color, contrast, and/or saturation enhancement
– selected spot and/or scratch removal
– cropped for composition and/or to accentuate subject - Battlefields in Motion – Fort Moultrie 1809-1930 – A Chronological List of Maps & Photos. Accessed December 25, 2020. http://moultrie.battlefieldsinmotion.com/Old-Photos-and-Maps.html.