USS Yankee (1861) USS Yankee (1861) USS "Yankee" (1861) was a steam-powered side-wheel tugboat acquired by the Union Navy just prior to the outbreak of the American Civil War. The "Yankee"—a side-wheel steamer built in 1860 at New York City—was one of three steam tugs chartered early in April 1861 at New York City for use on the expedition to provision Fort Sumter, South Carolina, the first U.S. state to declare its secession from the Union, which it had done on December 20, 1860. She departed New York on 8 April 1861 and arrived off Charleston Bar on the 15th, a few hours
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