A History of Fort Sumter: Building a Civil War Landmark.

Join author M. Patrick Hendrix as he follows the tumultuous lives of the men who fought to control the most revered monuments to the war. In 1829, construction began on a fort atop a rock formation in the mouth of Charleston Harbor. Decades later, Fort Sumter was near completion on December 26, 1860, when Major Robert Anderson occupied it in response to the growing hostilities between the North and South. As a symbol of sedition for the North and holy ground for the South, possession of Fort Sumter was deemed essential to both sides when the Civil War began. By 1864, the fort, heavily bombarded by Union artillery, was a shapeless mass of ruins, mostly bermed rubble and sand with a garrison of Confederate soldiers holding its ground.

Pat Hendrix is an educator and cultural resources consultant, researching and writing on American history for public and private clients. He writes on topics as diverse as African pottery production in Colonial Charleston, coal mining in West Virginia and rice planting in Colonial and Antebellum South Carolina. His publications include Murder and Mayhem in the Holy City and Down and Dirty: Archaeology of the South Carolina Lowcountry.