THE MAKING OF A NATION 98- Abraham Lincoln, Part 3 (Attack o

THE MAKING OF A NATION #98- Abraham Lincoln, Part 3 (Attack on Fort Sumter)
By Frank Beardsley

Broadcast: Thursday, January 20, 2005

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VOICE ONE:

THE MAKING OF A NATION -- a program in Special English.

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Just before sunrise on the morning of April twelfth, eighteen-sixty-one, the first shot was fired in the American Civil War. A heavy mortar¹ roared, sending a shell high over the harbor at Charleston, South Carolina. The shell dropped and exploded above Fort Sumter, a United States fort on an island in the harbor.

The explosion was a signal for all southern guns surrounding the fort to open fire. Shell after shell smashed into the island fort.

The booming of the cannons³ woke the people of Charleston. They rushed to the harbor and cheered as the bursting shells lighted the dark sky.

VOICE TWO:

 
Abraham Lincoln
Confederate leaders ordered the attack after President Abraham Lincoln refused to withdraw the small force of American soldiers at Sumter. Food supplies at the fort were very low. And southerners expected hunger would force the soldiers to leave. But Lincoln announced he was sending a ship to Fort Sumter with food.

Confederate President Jefferson Davis ordered his commander in Charleston, General [Pierre] Beauregard, to destroy the fort before the food could arrive.

VOICE ONE:

The attack started from Fort Johnson across the harbor from Sumter. A Virginia Congressman⁴, Roger Pryor, was visiting Fort Johnson when the order to fire was given. The fort's commander asked Pryor if he would like the honor of firing the mortar that would begin the attack. "No," answered Pryor, and his voice shook. "I cannot fire the first gun of the war."

But others could. And the attack began.

VOICE TWO:

At Fort Sumter, Major Robert Anderson and his men waited three hours before firing back at the Confederate guns.

Anderson could not use his most powerful cannons. They were in the open at the top of the fort, where there was no protection for the gunners. Too many of his small force would be lost if he tried to fire these guns.

So Anderson had his men fire the smaller cannon² from better-protected positions. These, however, did not do much damage to the Confederate guns.

VOICE ONE:

The shelling continued all day. A big cloud of smoke rose high in the air over Fort Sumter.

The smoke was seen by United States navy ships a few miles outside Charleston Harbor. They had come with the ship bringing food for the men at Sumter. There were soldiers on these ships. But they could not reach the fort to help Major Anderson. Confederate boats blocked the entrance to the harbor. And confederate guns could destroy any ship that tried to enter.

The commander of the naval⁵ force, Captain [Gustavus] Fox, had hoped to move the soldiers to Sumter in small boats. But the sea was so rough that the small boats could not be used. Fox could only watch and hope for calmer seas.

VOICE TWO:

Confederate shells continued to smash into Sumter throughout the night and into the morning of the second day. The fires at Fort Sumter burned higher. And smoke filled the rooms where soldiers still tried to fire their cannons.

About noon, three men arrived at the fort in a small boat. One of them was Louis Wigfall, a former United States senator from Texas, now a Confederate officer. He asked to see Major Anderson.

"I come from General Beauregard," he said. "It is time to put a stop to this, sir. The flames are raging all around you. And you have defended your flag bravely. Will you leave, sir?" Wigfall asked.

VOICE ONE:

Major Anderson was ready to stop fighting. His men had done all that could be expected of them. They had fought well against a much stronger enemy. Anderson said he would surrender, if he and his men could leave with honor.

Wigfall agreed. He told Anderson to lower his flag and the firing would stop.

Down came the United States flag. And up went the white flag of surrender. The battle of Fort Sumter was over.

More than four-thousand shells had been fired during the thirty-three hours of fighting. But no one on either side was killed. One United States soldier, however, was killed the next day when a cannon exploded as Anderson's men prepared to leave the fort.

VOICE TWO:

The news of Anderson's surrender reached Washington late Saturday, April thirteenth. President Lincoln and his cabinet met the next day and wrote a declaration that the president would announce on Monday.

In it, Lincoln said powerful forces had seized control in seven states of the south. He said these forces were too strong to be stopped by courts or policemen. Lincoln said troops were needed. He requested that the states send him seventy-five-thousand soldiers. He said these men would be used to get control of forts and other federal property seized from the Union.

VOICE ONE:

Lincoln knew he had the support of his own party. He also wanted northern Democrats⁷ to give him full support. So, Sunday evening, a Republican congressman visited the top Democrat⁶ of the north, Senator Stephen Douglas.

The congressman urged Douglas to go to the White House and tell Lincoln that he would do all he could to help put down the rebellion in the south. At first, Douglas refused. He said Lincoln had removed Democrats -- friends of his -- from government jobs and had given the jobs to Republicans. Douglas said he didn't like this. Anyway, he said, Lincoln probably did not want his advice.

The congressman, George Ashmun, urged Douglas to forget party politics. He said Lincoln and the country needed the Senator's help. Douglas finally agreed to talk with Lincoln. He and Ashmun went immediately to the White House.

VOICE TWO:

Lincoln welcomed his old political opponent. He explained his plans and read to Douglas the declaration he would announce the next day.

Douglas said he agreed with every word of it except, he said, seventy-five-thousand soldiers would not be enough. Remembering his problems with southern extremists, he urged Lincoln to ask for two-hundred-thousand men. He told the president, "You do not know the dishonest purposes of those men as well as I do."

Lincoln and Douglas talked for two hours. Then the Senator gave a statement for the newspapers. He said he still opposed the administration on political questions. But, he said, he completely supported Lincoln's efforts to protect the Union.

Douglas was to live for only a few more months. He spent this time working for the Union. He traveled through the states of the northwest, making many speeches. Douglas urged Democrats everywhere to support the Republican government. He told them, "There can be no neutrals in this war -- only patriots⁸ or traitors⁹."

VOICE ONE:

Throughout the north, thousands of men rushed to answer Lincoln's call for troops. Within two days, a military group from Boston left for Washington. Other groups formed quickly in northern cities and began training for war.

Lincoln received a different answer, however, from the border states between north and south.

Virginia's governor said he would not send troops to help the north get control of the south. North Carolina's governor said the request violated the Constitution. He would have no part of it. Tennessee said it would not send one man to help force southern states back into the Union. But it said it would send fifty-thousand troops to defend southern rights.

Lincoln got the same answer from the governors of Kentucky, Arkansas, and Missouri. For several days, it seemed that all these states would secede¹⁰ and join the southern confederacy.

VOICE TWO:

Lincoln worried most about Virginia, the powerful state just across the Potomac River from Washington. A secession convention already was meeting at the state capital. On April seventeenth, the convention voted to take Virginia out of the Union.

Virginia's vote to secede forced an American army officer to make a most difficult decision. The officer was Colonel Robert E. Lee, a citizen of Virginia.

The army's top commander, General Winfield Scott, had called Lee to Washington. Scott believed Lee was the best officer in the army. Lincoln agreed. He asked Lee to take General Scott's job, to become the army chief.

Lee was offered the job on the same day that Virginia left the Union. He felt strong ties to his state. But he also loved the Union.

His decision will be our story in the next program of THE MAKING OF A NATION.

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VOICE ONE:

You have been listening to the Special English program, THE MAKING OF A NATION. Your narrators were Stuart Spencer and Jack¹¹ Moyles. THE MAKING OF A NATION can be heard Thursdays.

1 mortar   

n.灰浆，灰泥；迫击炮；v.把…用灰浆涂接合

参考例句：

• The mason flushed the joint with mortar.泥工用灰浆把接缝处嵌平。
• The sound of mortar fire seemed to be closing in.迫击炮的吼声似乎正在逼近。

2 cannon   

n.大炮，火炮；飞机上的机关炮

参考例句：

• The soldiers fired the cannon.士兵们开炮。
• The cannon thundered in the hills.大炮在山间轰鸣。

3 cannons   

n.加农炮，大炮，火炮( cannon的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Cannons bombarded enemy lines. 大炮轰击了敌军阵地。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• One company had been furnished with six cannons. 某连队装备了六门大炮。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 Congressman   

n.（美）国会议员

参考例句：

• He related several anecdotes about his first years as a congressman.他讲述自己初任议员那几年的几则轶事。
• The congressman is meditating a reply to his critics.这位国会议员正在考虑给他的批评者一个答复。

5 naval   

adj.海军的，军舰的，船的

参考例句：

• He took part in a great naval battle.他参加了一次大海战。
• The harbour is an important naval base.该港是一个重要的海军基地。

6 democrat   

n.民主主义者，民主人士；民主党党员

参考例句：

• The Democrat and the Public criticized each other.民主党人和共和党人互相攻击。
• About two years later,he was defeated by Democrat Jimmy Carter.大约两年后，他被民主党人杰米卡特击败。

7 democrats   

n.民主主义者，民主人士( democrat的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The Democrats held a pep rally on Capitol Hill yesterday. 民主党昨天在国会山召开了竞选誓师大会。
• The democrats organize a filibuster in the senate. 民主党党员组织了阻挠议事。 来自《简明英汉词典》

8 patriots   

爱国者，爱国主义者( patriot的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Abraham Lincoln was a fine type of the American patriots. 亚伯拉罕·林肯是美国爱国者的优秀典型。
• These patriots would fight to death before they surrendered. 这些爱国者宁愿战斗到死，也不愿投降。

9 traitors   

卖国贼( traitor的名词复数 )； 叛徒； 背叛者； 背信弃义的人

参考例句：

• Traitors are held in infamy. 叛徒为人所不齿。
• Traitors have always been treated with contempt. 叛徒永被人们唾弃。

10 secede   

v.退出，脱离

参考例句：

• They plotted to make the whole Mississippi Valley secede from the United States.他们阴谋策划使整个密西西比流域脱离美国。
• We won't allow Tibet to secede from China and become an independent nation.我们决不允许西藏脱离中国独立。

11 jack   

n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克

参考例句：

• I am looking for the headphone jack.我正在找寻头戴式耳机插孔。
• He lifted the car with a jack to change the flat tyre.他用千斤顶把车顶起来换下瘪轮胎。