Fort Sumter

By Landon Wharton

        One day I went to Fort Sumter National Monument in South Carolina.  It was a nice winter day.  I was with my mom and my little brother Jacob.  To get to Fort Sumter, we had to go through the museum onto the dock and then onto the boat.  Next, the boat driver took us in the boat to Fort Sumter.  This fort was actually built in 1829 after the War of 1812 and was used in the Civil War in 1861 by the Confederate Army of the South who wanted to be separated from Abraham Lincoln and the Union.  

        Once we got there, the fort was huge!  We walked along this long brick path coming out of the water to get from the boat to the fort’s door.  Once we got inside we saw lots of cannons and a big black building in the fort.  The cannons were all black.  Some were small and some were large.  Seeing all the large cannons made me feel like I was in the Civil War.  After that, we went inside the black building, which was actually a museum.

In the museum, we learned that the black building was called Battery Huger, which was built during the Spanish-American War in 1899.  Inside the battery, we saw a model of the fort from the Civil War, cannonballs, South Carolina’s first flag, and other artifacts.  One thing I noticed, and I was surprised by, was a Civil War hand grenade.  I learned that both the Union and Confederate soldiers used them.  

After we came out of the battery, we found some shells (in the shape of a spiral with a cone on top) in the walls of the fort.  We found three of them and they were hard to find because they were the same color as the old bricks of the fort.  

After that, we went to the top of the high grounds and went to the edge and saw some wild dolphins that live in brackish water (which means fresh water mixed with salt water).  I was super excited when I saw the dolphins! They were splashing around, coming up for air, and catching fish.  It was super fun to watch the dolphins!

Finally, after we saw the dolphins and explored the fort, we went back to the long brick path back to the boat.  The boat took us back to the Fort Sumter Museum where I earned a Junior Ranger National Monument badge.  I loved my visit to Fort Sumter!