The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War

by Erik Larson

After breakfast Parker and the men around him began lighting cigars and settled back to smoke. This was interrupted when, at about nine a.m., a loud cheer rose from the direction of the beach. They ran toward it “pell mell,” Parker wrote, and found their fellow soldiers standing on every available promontory cheering wildly. The sound was deafening. “It goes on, from hill to hill till it reaches the farthest end of the Island.” Fort Sumter, they saw, was on fire. — This fire persisted and intensified. A succession of mortar shells fell into and around the burning structure, as did salvos of incendiary cannonballs. Walls and woodwork caught fire. Captain Doubleday, like Foster, recognized that this fire now threatened the main powder magazine, which was embedded within the ground floor of the burning structure. Though the magazine was heavily shielded with masonry and a heavy copper door and thus largely bombproof and fireproof, the risk remained that an errant spark might penetrate the chamber through its ventilator and detonate powder stored inside, with catastrophic consequences. The men used axes to cut away walls, stairs, posts, and timbers to starve the fire of as much fuel as possible. Anderson decided the powder was still too vulnerable and ordered his men to move the barrels to the casemates at the opposite side of the parade. The task was hazardous beyond calculation. It required the men to open the magazine’s door and leave it open for prolonged periods, which le...

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