Eyewitness 1861: Pittsburghers react to attack on Fort Sumter
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The bombardment of Fort Sumter as seen from the Confederate battery in Fort Johnson during the Civil War.
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A "feverish excitement" raised the political temperature in Pittsburgh as news circulated about the opening shots of what many feared would be civil war.
In the early morning of Friday, April 12, 1861, Confederate artillery in South Carolina fired on Fort Sumter and the U.S. flag waving above it.
"The news of the attack ... was received in the city about ten o'clock last night, and created the most feverish excitement," the Pittsburgh Daily Gazette reported on Saturday morning.
"[H]undreds were slow to credit the rumors, but on receiving assurances of the truth of the reports, the people upon the streets formed in knots discussing the all-absorbing topic of the hour," the paper said. Messengers were "running hither and thither, keeping up communications with the various printing offices, the telegraph office, and other sources of correct information."
A new play, "The Chimney Corner," had opened at the city's Pittsburgh Theater on Wood Street. It had drawn a large crowd for the Friday evening performance, the newspaper reported. Between the acts, a dispatch was read, announcing the opening of hostilities, the Gazette reported. "This elicited the wildest enthusiasm, the reader being interrupted by repeated bursts of applause."
Pittsburgh in 1861 had strong economic links to the Mississippi Valley, and many of its residents had roots below the Mason-Dixon Line. A significant minority were Democrats and sympathetic to the Southern cause. The Confederate attack on Fort Sumter, which was commanded by Major Robert Anderson, changed at least one theatergoer's view of the situation, the Gazette reported.
"At the close, a patriotic individual arose in the audience, exclaiming, 'I'm a democrat! But three cheers for Major Anderson!' "
First Published April 17, 2011 12:00 am
