Fort Barrancas mostly by enslaved African-American workers. January 8, 1861, more than three months before the American Civil War officially started at Fort Sumter, South Carolina, a company of 50 U.S. Army soldiers stationed at Fort Barrancas, under the command of John H. Winder fired upon a militia. This militia was Florida state troops under Colonel William Henry Chase demanding that the U.S. troops surrender the fort. Lieutenant Adam J. Slemmer, acting commander in Winder's absence, had the troops fire shots meant to repel the militia. Lt Slemmer knew that Fort Pickens was easier to defend, so he spiked the guns at
Jefferson C. Davis Virginia. In 1857, he was stationed again in Fort McHenry moving to Florida in 1858. In the summer of 1858, he received a transfer to Fort Moultrie, South Carolina. Fort Moultrie was located near Fort Sumter and Charleston, South Carolina. He remained in South Carolina until Fort Sumter was evacuated at the beginning of the Civil War, in 1861. When the war began in April 1861, Davis was an officer in the garrison at Fort Sumter when it was bombarded by Confederate forces. The following month he was promoted to captain and given the task of raising a regiment in