Robert Anderson (Civil War)
Robert Anderson was a United States Army officer during the American Civil War. He was the Union commander in the first battle of the American Civil War at Fort Sumter in April 1861 when the Confederates bombarded the fort and forced its surrender to start the war. Anderson was celebrated as a hero in the North and promoted to brigadier general and given command of Union forces in Kentucky. He was removed late in 1861 and reassigned to Rhode Island, before retiring from military service in 1863.
Robert Anderson (Civil War)
Major Robert Anderson, photo by Mathew Brady
Robert Anderson's telegram announcing the surrender of Fort Sumter
Major Robert Anderson is honored with his likeness inscribed in a monument atop Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor.
The American Civil War was a civil war in the United States between the Union and the Confederacy, which had been formed by states that had seceded from the Union.
Frederick Douglass, a former slave, was a leading abolitionist
Sen. Stephen A. Douglas, author of the Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854
Sen. John J. Crittenden, of the 1860 Crittenden Compromise
Ambrotype of two unidentified young boys, one in blue Union cap, one in gray Confederate cap (Liljenquist collection, Library of Congress)
