<P> Lincoln's notification had been made to the governor of South Carolina, not the new Confederate government, which Lincoln did not recognize . Pickens consulted with Beauregard, the local Confederate commander . Soon President Davis ordered Beauregard to repeat the demand for Sumter's surrender, and if it did not, to reduce the fort before the relief expedition arrived . The Confederate cabinet, meeting in Montgomery, endorsed Davis's order on April 9 . Only Secretary of State Robert Toombs opposed this decision: he reportedly told Jefferson Davis the attack "will lose us every friend at the North . You will only strike a hornet's nest...Legions now quiet will swarm out and sting us to death . It is unnecessary . It puts us in the wrong . It is fatal ." </P> <P> Beauregard dispatched aides--Col. James Chesnut, Col. James A. Chisholm, and Capt . Stephen D. Lee--to Fort Sumter on April 11 to issue the ultimatum . Anderson refused, although he reportedly commented, "I shall await the first shot, and if you do not batter us to pieces, we shall be starved out in a few days ." The aides returned to Charleston and reported this comment to Beauregard . At 1 a.m. on April 12, the aides brought Anderson a message from Beauregard: "If you will state the time which you will evacuate Fort Sumter, and agree in the meantime that you will not use your guns against us unless ours shall be employed against Fort Sumter, we will abstain from opening fire upon you ." After consulting with his senior officers, Maj . Anderson replied that he would evacuate Sumter by noon, April 15, unless he received new orders from his government or additional supplies . Col. Chesnut considered this reply to be too conditional and wrote a reply, which he handed to Anderson at 3: 20 a.m.: "Sir: by authority of Brigadier General Beauregard, commanding the Provisional Forces of the Confederate States, we have the honor to notify you that he will open fire of his batteries on Fort Sumter in one hour from this time ." Anderson escorted the officers back to their boat, shook hands with each one, and said "If we never meet in this world again, God grant that we may meet in the next ." </P> <P> At 4: 30 a.m. on April 12, 1861, Lt. Henry S. Farley, acting upon the command of Capt . George S. James, fired a single 10 - inch mortar round from Fort Johnson . (James had offered the first shot to Roger Pryor, a noted Virginia secessionist, who declined, saying, "I could not fire the first gun of the war .") The shell exploded over Fort Sumter as a signal to open the general bombardment from 43 guns and mortars at Fort Moultrie, Fort Johnson, the floating battery, and Cummings Point . Under orders from Beauregard, the guns fired in a counterclockwise sequence around the harbor, with 2 minutes between each shot; Beauregard wanted to conserve ammunition, which he calculated would last for only 48 hours . Edmund Ruffin, another noted Virginia secessionist, had traveled to Charleston to be present for the beginning of the war, and fired one of the first shots at Sumter after the signal round, a 64 - pound shell from the Iron Battery at Cummings Point . The shelling of Fort Sumter from the batteries ringing the harbor awakened Charleston's residents (including diarist Mary Chesnut), who rushed out into the predawn darkness to watch the shells arc over the water and burst inside the fort . </P> <P> Major Anderson held his fire, awaiting daylight . His troops reported for a call at 6 a.m. and then had breakfast . At 7 a.m., Capt . Abner Doubleday fired a shot at the Ironclad Battery at Cummings Point . He missed . Given the available manpower, Anderson could not take advantage of all of his 60 guns . He deliberately avoided using guns that were situated in the fort where casualties were most likely . The fort's best cannons were mounted on the uppermost of its three tiers--the barbette tier--where his troops were most exposed to incoming fire from overhead . The fort had been designed to withstand a naval assault, and naval warships of the time did not mount guns capable of elevating to shoot over the walls of the fort . However, the land - based cannons manned by the Confederates were capable of high - arcing ballistic trajectories and could therefore fire at parts of the fort that would have been out of naval guns' reach . Fort Sumter's garrison could only safely fire the 21 working guns on the lowest level, which themselves, because of the limited elevation allowed by their embrasures, were largely incapable of delivering fire with trajectories high enough to seriously threaten Fort Moultrie . Moreover, although the Federals had moved as many of their supplies to Fort Sumter as they could manage, the fort was quite low on ammunition, and was nearly out at the end of the 34 - hour bombardment . A more immediate problem was the scarcity of cloth gunpowder cartridges or bags; only 700 were available at the beginning of the battle and workmen sewed frantically to create more, in some cases using socks from Anderson's personal wardrobe . Because of the shortages, Anderson reduced his firing to only six guns: two aimed at Cummings Point, two at Fort Moultrie, and two at the Sullivan's Island batteries . </P>

Who fired the shots that began the civil war