Fort Sumter - Charleston, South Carolina

Sitting in Pics of Me in Front of Stuff Manor in Central New Jersey by myself watching the New Orleans Saints and Arizona Cardinals turn the Super Dome scoreboard into a pinball machine, I can not help but feel sad and lonely.  No, it's not because the Eagles got demolished by the Dallas Cowboys on Saturday night though that was painful to watch.  Late last week, Pics of Me in Front of Stuff lost the only chief photographer it's ever had.  No, CP did not pass away or a similar catastrophe.  That would be infinitely worse.  Rather she decided her and I needed to go our separate ways.  I will not go into the dynamics of our relationship or the causes for what may appear to some as a sudden development here - that's not for a public forum.  I will leave it that we are no longer together and the past week and a half has been very painful.  I hope by writing this I can feel a little better than I have recently and get past the general malaise that has overcome me recently.
So in happier times and warmer places, CP and I continued our exploration of Charleston, South Carolina by visiting a major landmark in the history of the United States - Fort Sumter.

On  April 12, 1861 Confederate artillery fired the first shots of the Civil War on the island fort in the entrance of Charleston Harbor.  My mustache and I (aka Cleo Possum) were there about 250 years later.

The fort allowed the Confederacy to have control the harbor for the four years that it was under their control.  Union forces never wrested control of Fort Sumter from their enemies until it was abandoned by Confederate forces under the threat of the burning of Charleston by marauding Union forces in the area.  The Union Army never set fire to Charleston, but they did regain control of the fort.  Also, in case you missed it, and I know some of my fellow Americans in the South have, the Union won the war.  While I despise the New York Yankees as a native of Pennsylvania, I technically am a Yankee and I am always pleased to be on the winning side of anything.  I get fired up for the Big 33 Game.  I'll probably yell at the screen during the Winter Olympics.  Maybe I suffer from jingoism or I am just patriotic.
One of my favorite parts of the trip to Fort Sumter was the park ranger mentioning that Fort Sumter was built on YANKEE SOIL!!!  He said it just like that with his surprisingly deep voice.  ALL CAPS and bold with a few exclamation points!!!  While Fort Sumter was built on a sandbar that is not deeply submerged in the harbor there is little rock nearby upon which to build a 5-sided brick structure with walls that are almost 200 feet long and five feet thick.  The rock, 70,000 tons of it, was imported from New Hampshire, the Granite State, deep in the heart of the Yankee north.  It does not get much more north than that in the United States.  So really, the first shots of the Civil War were fired on or at least at Yankee soil.  I guess you could lump Fort Sumter in with Gettysburg as not just Civil War landmarks but also Civil War conflicts on Union Territory.  Obviously, Gettysburg did not go so well for anyone considering how many men lost their lives there, but it went especially bad for Johnny Reb.  Remember who won the war, forgetful Southerners.
Another of my favorite parts of the visit to Fort Sumter was the lovely December weather in Charleston.

The weather was warm and sunny for the ferry ride across the harbor to the fort.  The entire time I spent in Charleston was a reprieve from the New Jersey winter I had just left.  The exact temperature is irrelevant though I imagine it was in the high 50s or low 60s.  The sky was a clear blue and the shined warmly all day.  If the weather is always this lovely in Charleston in December I could imagine living there.  Given the lovely climate during my brief stay I could forsake my Union jingoistic attitude.  However, if it ever turned cold the Yankee in me would rear it's ugly head.