The broad estuary of Charleston harbor is completely landlocked, and has an entrance from the sea about a mile wide. On the southern side is Fort Moultrie, which was enlarged from the battery that repulsed the British attack in 1776, on Sullivan's Island, this now being a favorite summer resort, and dotted with wooden cottages facing the sea. Just behind the fort is the grave of Osceola, the famous chief of the Seminoles, who long carried on war in the Florida everglades, but was captured and brought a prisoner to Fort Moultrie, dying in 1838. Fort Sumter, three miles below Charleston, stands upon a shoal of about three acres, out in mid-channel, which is protected from the water encroachment by stone rip-rapping. It was faced with brick during the Civil War, but the work has since been modernized. At the opening of the war, Major Anderson occupied this fort with the small force of seventy-five men, which, after the secession of South Carolina from the Union, December 20, 1860, had been transferred thither from Fort Moultrie, the State troops immediately seizing Moultrie and all the other forts around the harbor, and the Federal public buildings in Charleston. They also constructed new batteries on Morris Island, the nearest land to Fort Sumter. On January 9, 1861, the Government at Washington sent the steamer "Star of the West" into the harbor with provisions and a reinforcement of two hundred and fifty troops. The first shot of the Civil War was on that day fired at her from Morris Island, and the ship being struck by this and subsequent shots, her commander abandoned the project and withdrew. There was a good deal of negotiation and delay afterwards, the Government, on April 8th, finally determining to provision Fort Sumter, as Anderson's supplies would be exhausted on the 15th, and so informing the Governor of South Carolina. On the 11th, General Beauregard, commanding the State forces, demanded the surrender of the fort, which was refused. Major Anderson was notified early next morning that the fort would be fired upon in one hour, and cannonading began at 4.20 A.M. on the 12th. A fleet of vessels appeared off the harbor at noon with provisions, exchanged signals with the fort, but made no attempt to land, and on the 13th terms of surrender were arranged by which Major Anderson and his little command marched out on the 14th with the honors of war, saluting the American flag with fifty guns. This bombardment and evacuation set the North in a blaze of patriotic excitement and began the Civil War.