On April 14, 1865, Robert Anderson, now a retired brigadier general, returned to Fort Sumter to raise again the flag he had pulled down 4 years before. The guns of the harbor thundered in salute. In an address before the throng of spectators brought down from New York, Henry Ward Beecher said: [Illustration: Raising the original flag at Fort Sumter, April 14, 1865. Contemporary artist’s sketch from French and Cary, The Trip of the Steamer Oceanus to Fort Sumter.] “We raise our fathers’ banner, that it may bring back better blessings than those of old, that it may cast out the devil of discord; that it may restore lawful government and a prosperity purer and more enduring than that which it protected before; that it may win parted friends from their alienation; that it may inspire hope and inaugurate universal liberty; ... that it may heal all jealousies, unite all policies, inspire a new national life, compact our strength, purify our principles, ennoble our national ambitions, and make this people great and strong ... for the peace of the world....” That night, with tragic coincidence, an assassin’s bullet felled Abraham Lincoln in Washington. [Illustration: Horizontal section, Fort Sumter, February 1865. The Gorge is at the base of the plan. Courtesy National Archives.] _Fort Sumter After 1865_ In the 1870’s the rubble and ruin of war were cleared from the interior of Fort Sumter, and the work of reconstruction began. The outer walls of the gorge and right flank, largely destroyed by the bombardments, were partially rebuilt. The other walls of the fort, left jagged and torn 30 to 40 feet above water, were leveled to approximately half their original height. Through the left flank a new sally port was constructed. Within the reconstructed walls of the fort, the earth and concrete works for a 10-gun battery _en barbette_ (guns fired from an open parapet) began to take shape. [Illustration: Interior of the Gorge as seen from atop the Left Flank, February 1865. The central bombproof is at the left.] Operations were well advanced, when, in June 1876, shortage of funds forced complete suspension of activity. Only three permanent barbette platforms had been constructed by that time. Of necessity, seven temporary (wooden) platforms remained; on these, four “200 pounder” Parrott rifles and two 15-inch Rodman smoothbores had been mounted. In a modification of the original plan, 11 lower-tier gunrooms of the original fort along the right face and about the salient had been recovered and armed with “100 pounder” Parrotts. In a gradually deteriorating state, these 17 guns constituted Fort Sumter’s armament for the next 23 years. [Illustration: Exterior, Fort Sumter, February 1865. The Gorge is at the right; the Left Flank is at the left.]