Book Review: Hero of Fort Sumter: The Extraordinary Life of Robert Anderson

Hero of Fort Sumter: The Extraordinary Life of Robert Anderson. By Wesley Moody. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2025. Hardcover, 242 pp. $36.95.

Reviewed by John B. Sinclair

Robert Anderson was an improbable American hero. Born to a prominent slaveholding family in Kentucky, he had no objection to slavery. Though opposed to secession, Anderson was sympathetic to the grievances of southern states. He even pondered resigning his commission and living in Europe if Kentucky seceded. Having seen the horrors of conflict in Indian wars and the U.S.-Mexican war, Anderson wanted the United States to avoid civil war. He hoped to receive orders to evacuate Fort Sumter to defuse the growing crisis. Yet, ordered by the Lincoln administration to defend the fort until a relief fleet arrived, Maj. Robert Anderson was loyal, performed his duty remarkably well, and won the admiration of his men and the American public.

There have been many books about the secession crisis and Fort Sumter.[1] Each provides a thumbnail sketch of Anderson’s background. According to the publisher, this book is the first full biography of Anderson. Author Wesley Moody is Professor of History at Florida State College at Jacksonville and has previously written on the Civil War.[2] The story is told in fourteen chapters—eight involving Anderson’s life and career before Fort Sumter, four chapters on his command at Sumter, and two final post-Sumter chapters. Moody takes advantage of the voluminous Robert Anderson papers to write a deeper examination of Anderson’s life outside Fort Sumter.

Born on June 14, 1805, Anderson was the eighth of twelve children. He grew up in comfortable circumstances. Anderson became a cadet at West Point. He ranked 15/36 in his class at graduation in 1825 and was assigned to the U.S. Third Artillery.

For the next thirty-five years before Fort Sumter, Anderson was given varied assignments ranging from isolated frontier forts to unusual settings. His initial mission was to assist his brother, Richard, then first minister to Columbia, at a South American Congress. They experienced an arduous journey to reach Cartagena. Robert became seriously ill with malaria, which would trouble him for the rest of his life. Robert picked up important diplomatic experience, but sadly Richard died of yellow fever on their return trip home.

Anderson fought in three wars before the Civil War – the Black Hawk War, the Seminole War, and the U.S.-Mexican War. Moody provides an excellent background for each conflict to give context for Anderson’s involvement with the Third Artillery.

Anderson personally swore Abraham Lincoln, a captain in an Illinois militia company, into service for the Black Hawk War. At the final battle, Anderson came across a wounded Black Hawk child in the arms of his deceased mother. A bullet had gone through the child’s arm and killed his mother. Anderson carried him to receive medical care. This and other scenes profoundly affected him. Anderson also came down with cholera during this campaign, and yet he still cared for other men afflicted with the same illness.

Anderson engaged in several campaigns against the Seminoles in Florida, including battles in the Everglades. He later had administrative responsibilities for the U.S. Army moving more than 15,000 Cherokees to the Indian Territory, a march known as the Trail of Tears. He wrote home with compassion about scenes of Cherokee anguish and grief he witnessed.

In 1841, Anderson assisted Gen. Winfield Scott on a several month mission from Maine to Detroit to calm tensions on the American side of the Canadian border following a violent dispute, another posting that gave him further diplomacy experience.

Anderson then reconnected with a former commanding officer, seeking to court his sixteen-year-old daughter, Eliza. She was not initially enthusiastic, recalling Anderson from her childhood as “stiff.” (73) Eliza relaxed her objection, and following a four-year courtship they married in 1845, eventually having five children.[3]

The U.S.-Mexican War led to Anderson being among the first to land in the invasion of Mexico. He participated in several difficult battles as a battery commander. He frequently wrote to his wife about the absurdity of war and vowed never again to fight in a foreign war. He was wounded three times in the battle of Molina Del Rey, the most serious being a bullet wound to the chest. Anderson initially refused medical attention and continued his duties directing his men until the battled ended, after which he collapsed.

In the remaining years before the Civil War, Anderson lobbied extensively for the establishment of retirement homes for soldiers. The legislation finally passed, and he was named as the first head of the Kentucky home. Anderson also completed his work on what became the official artillery manual for the Army.

In November 1860, Anderson was selected to take command of Fort Moultrie and other Charleston forts (including Fort Sumter, then under construction). He was viewed by the Buchanan administration as having valuable southern connections[4] and the necessary military and diplomatic skills needed to deal with volatile South Carolina authorities. Anderson showed boldness and skill in moving his exposed garrison at Fort Moultrie to the more secure Fort Sumter on the night of December 26, 1860.[5] Moody’s chapters on Fort Sumter are a summary for those not familiar with those events. There is little new in these chapters.[6] There are some unfortunate omissions.

New instructions from Buchanan to Anderson to defend Fort Sumter against attack allowed him to avoid “a vain and useless sacrifice…upon a mere point of honor.” Anderson was thus not required to defend the fort to “the last extremity.” (123-124) Buchanan stipulated that the orders be kept confidential, even from Anderson’s own officers. Author Moody asserts that Anderson kept these orders secret for the rest of his life. (124) This claim is incorrect. Anderson revealed them to his officers in an April 11 meeting.[7] The author also refers to a letter received just days before this meeting from Secretary of War Simon Cameron, but omits the instruction giving Anderson similar leeway to surrender when and if necessary.[8] (167). These omissions are significant.

Fortunately, the author gives a fine account of Anderson’s service post-Sumter and life afterwards. [9] For health reasons, Anderson formally resigned from the Army as a brevet major general in 1869[10] and retired in France. He died in 1871 and is buried at West Point.

Major Robert Anderson put aside his personal political views and honored his oath to the United States. This book offers important insight into his character and sense of duty.

[1] Some of the better books on the subject are 1861: The Civil War Awakening, Adam Goodhart (New York: Knopf, 2011); Allegiance: Fort Sumter, Charleston and the Beginning of the Civil War, David Detzer (California: Harcourt, 2001); and Days of Defiance: Sumter, Secession, and the Coming of the Civil War, Maury Klein (New York: Knopf, 1997). A complete history of Fort Sumter from construction to present day can be found in the excellent Thunder in the Harbor: Fort Sumter and the Civil War, Richard W. Hatcher, III (El Dorado Hills: Savas Beatie, 2024).

[2] Demon of the Lost Cause: Sherman and Civil War History, Wesley Moody (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2011). More importantly, Moody wrote a previous book on the battle of Fort Sumter – The Battle of Fort Sumter: The First Shots of the Civil War, Wesley Moody (New York: Routledge, 2016).

[3]   The author describes Eliza as being seventeen when she first became a mother, a clear mistake if Anderson reconnected with Eliza when she was sixteen and courted her for four years before marriage. (73) The author also initially states that the Andersons had four children, but later indicates that they had five children. (73-74 &108-109).

Eliza was able to visit her husband at Fort Sumter for two hours on January 6, 1861. The author misses an opportunity to emphasize Eliza’s position on Fort Sumter. In a February 25, 1861, letter to her husband, Eliza referred to the unauthorized surrender of the Department of Texas by General David Twiggs to Texas authorities. While saying how proud she was of Robert and valuing his life over her own, Eliza bluntly told her husband she would rather see him dead than be a traitor such as Twiggs. Detzer, Allegiance, 191.

[4]  Among others, he was prewar friends with Jefferson Davis and instructed P.G.T. Beauregard in artillery at West Point. The latter of course planned and coordinated the artillery bombardment of Fort Sumter.

[5] A little-known but remarkably similar maneuver occurred on January 10, 1861. Lt. Adam Slemmer commanded Fort Barrancas on land at Pensacola Navy Yard, Florida. He moved his garrison to the empty Fort Pickens on Santa Rosa Island, which commanded the opening to the harbor. He refused Florida militia demands to surrender. Union reinforcements and supplies eventually arrived, denying the Confederates use of the Pensacola harbor during the Civil War. Slemmer was initially hailed as a hero in the North but has faded into obscurity. The Life of Adam Jacoby Slemmer…one strong voice of defiance, A.M. Gambone (Baltimore: Butternut & Blue, 2005).

[6] For a full treatment of Fort Sumter, see the books cited in footnote 1 above.

[7]  Klein, Days of Defiance, 401; Goodhart, 1861, 163; Detzer, Allegiance, 257.

[8]  First Blood: The Story of Fort Sumter, W.A. Swanberg (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1957), 281(containing the full message).

[9]  Even so, these sections are also not error free. Describing Anderson’s meeting with Lincoln in the White House on May 7, 1861, the author states it is “lost to history…whether either man remembered the last time they met and discussed their shared experience in the Black Hawk War.” (185) This claim contradicts an earlier statement that Lincoln indeed remembered Anderson from the Black Hawk War when they met in the White House. (42)

[10] While the official terminal point for his service, Anderson’s health issues led to his request to be relieved from command of the Department of Kentucky in the fall of 1861 (his subordinate, William T. Sherman, assumed command but then notably suffered from his own set of stressors). Upon his request in September 1863, Anderson was retired from “active service.” He subsequently had some advisory/ceremonial Army duties, most notably in raising the Stars & Stripes over Fort Sumter on April 14, 1865.

John B. Sinclair is a retired charitable foundation president and a retired attorney. He is a member of the Baltimore Civil War Roundtable, a member of the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War (James A. Garfield Camp No. 1), and a Life Member of the Lincoln Forum