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
Fort Sumter 135 guns in three tiers of gun emplacements, although it was never filled near its full capacity. On December 26, 1860, six days after South Carolina seceded from the Union, U.S. Army Major Robert Anderson abandoned the indefensible Fort Moultrie, spiking its large guns, burning its gun carriages, and taking its smaller cannon with him to be trained on the city. He secretly relocated companies E and H (127 men, 13 of them musicians) of the 1st U.S. Artillery to Fort Sumter on his own initiative, without orders from his superiors. He thought that providing a stronger defense would delay