Connecting the Shots: 1861-1865

Anderson Intelligencer, May 30, 1900

 Could the same man have fired the first and last shots of the Civil War? That's the implication of some recently unearthed newspaper clippings. 

 The Anderson Intelligencer of May 30, 1900, reprinted a story from the Greenville Mountaineer, signed anonymously by "Old Coins," who interviewed eyewitnesses to the skirmish in his quest to document the last "battle" of the Civil War, which involved Stoneman's raiders on May 1, 1865—three weeks after Robert E. Lee's surrender in Virginia. The clipping quotes Butler Dyer of Piedmont:

Mr. Paul Allan, of Charleston, was one of the Citadel cadets and who was the man who fired the first shot of the war on the steamer "Star of the West," was also a member of this company, and fired the last shot at the enemy on this occasion, thus having the somewhat remarkable experience and distinction of having inaugurated and finished the sanguinary conflict of '61 to '65.

 The Bamberg Herald of May 19, 1921, carried an account from The Greenville News, where the skirmish was documented by Louise Vandiver (1865-1938), who authored the Traditions and History of Anderson County in 1928. Mrs. Vandiver collected historical clippings, and her source may have been the 1900 account. 

Among the Confederate party was young man named Paul Allen, a Charlestonian, who, it is said, fired the first shot at the Star of the West, having been a Citadel cadet at the time, and who, just to complete his record in a satisfactory manner, fired the last shot at the retreating Federal cavalry in this final skirmish on the lonely road away off in Anderson county, ending, as he had begun, one of the greatest wars in all of history. 

 Mrs. Vandiver goes on to identify Andersonians who were part of that skirmish, including James L. Dean, D.S. McCullough, F.A. Silcox, J.B. Lewis, G.W. Sullivan, and E.A. Smyth. Ellison Adger Smyth became the founder of Pelzer Mills and helped make Greenville the "Textile Capital of the World." We previously reported that Smyth was involved in the Anderson skirmish. Smyth (1847-1942) also claimed to have witnessed the first shot on Fort Sumter.

 Sullivan (1847-1928) later became mayor of Williamston, which may account for the "Confederate Skirmish" historical marker being erected in that town, rather than near the actual site. John Baylis Lewis (1848-1929) became an Anderson businessman. 

 The Stoneman Gazette previously reported how a Georgia rebel boasted of loading the first gun fired at Fort Sumter. 

 Here is the entire clipping from the Anderson newspaper:

Anderson Intelligencer, May 30, 1900