Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 31.djvu/85

 First Shot of the War was Fired in the Air. 77

In the Providence (R. I.) Journal appeared a statement written by Rev. Isaac Crocker, chaplain of Slocum Post, No. 10, G. A. R., and dated June 23. It follows:

To the Editor of the Sunday Journal : The following dispatch appeared in public print the other day:

"Columbia, S. C., June 13.

" Major W. H. Gibbes, who is said to have fired the first shot of the Civil war on Fort Sumter, died here yesterday. Major Gibbes was a gunner in Captain George James' company, to whom General Beauregard sent the order to open fire upon Major Anderson."

This article was, no doubt, published to some extent throughout the country. But I do not think that the honor, if honor it be, be- longed to the late Major Gibbes. During the war Charles Carleton Coffin was the war correspondent of the Boston Daily Journal, his letters appearing over the signature of Carleton. Mr. Coffin is the author of a number of patriotic and historical books. He was quite famous as a lecturer. He delivered the memorial day address at Barnstable, Mass., May 30, 1888. The address was published in the Barnstable Patriot of June 5, 1888, from which I copy the following extract :

"We now come to April 12, 1861. Abraham Lincoln is presi- dent. With no movement on the part of the government to resist the secessionists, they have carried out their plans in the erection of batteries on Morris Island for the bombardment of Fort Sumter. The dim gray of the morning was in the East, when a shot sped its way toward the fort. An old man, with white hair flowing upon his shoulders, had pulled the lanyard, Edmund Ruffin, of Virginia. Little does he comprehend what will come of the act. That his beautiful home on the banks of the James, before the war is over will be burned; that a great army will trample his fields, destroy his forests; that his 200 slaves will become free men and citizens of the republic; that through mortification over the downfall of the Con- federacy his own hands will coil the rope around his neck, and that the ending of his life will be that of the suicide."

Regarding the integrity and veracity of Mr. Coffin there can be no question. And I do not believe that he would make any statement in public or affix his signature to any written statement unless he had ample and positive evidence of its truthfulness.