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Anderson of SumterThe distance from Louisville, Kentucky to Charleston, South Carolina can be measured in time and distance or in at least one instance, a man's lifetime.Robert Anderson was born in the summer of 1805 into a family of soldiers. A graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1825 he served in the Second Seminole War, and was wounded in 1841 during the Mexican War. He was not a flamboyant soldier like some of his comrades. Anderson was a solid officer who made his historical appearances strongly tethered to irony. He swore Captain Abraham Lincoln into service during the Black Hawk War, fought in the Mexican War with other men who garnered fame in the Civil War, and became an unwilling pawn in the game that opened the conflict: the siege of Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor.Another irony of course, was that the hot-tempered Confederate officer commanding the 120 cannons surrounding Fort Sumter was P.G.T. Beauregard. Major Robert Anderson, officer commanding the incomplete, undermanned fort in Charleston Harbor, was a former instructor of artillery at West Point. Beauregard had been his student. So had Confederate general Braxton Bragg, and Union general William Tecumseh Sherman. The American army before the conflict was a family, and like the nation it to was rendered asunder. Anderson, Kentuckian, soldier, loyal American, would not surrender Fort Sumter, sending word to his commander-in-chief, Abraham Lincoln (late Captain, Illinois Volunteers) , that if nothing was done the fort would fall from lack of supplies. Anderson's position was untenable. He was outgunned, surrounded, outmanned and he stood at the cusp of a whirlwind that once unleashed might wipe his nation from the face of the earth. Few people have, by virtue of their position, been capable of starting a war by making the wrong decision.It made no difference what Major Anderson did, the war came. Sumter fell, but Anderson and his men were released (it was still a war of gentlemen) , and the major was promoted to brigadier general. He toured the North, and then was named commander of the Department of Kentucky. It was a short-lived assignment, and he went on to command Fort Adams at Newport, Rhode Island. Anderson returned to Fort Sumter, by now a ruin of war, to celebrate the Union victory and his role in the defense of the fort. On October 26, 1871 Robert Anderson died. Like most soldiers he could have easily lived his life in obscurity, dying without historical notice. Anderson's notoriety came because he embraced the credo; duty, honor, country. Not a bad epitaph, that. Leave a commentFiled under Uncategorized October 31, 2012 · 1:15 pm A Good Man's Ghost Part 1-By Steven WilsonDr. George handed Martin a box of Kleenex."Thanks," he said.She sat back in her chair and waited for him to compose himself. "You know its okay to cry," she said.He wiped his nose and tossed the Kleenex in the wastepaper can next to hi
