"You Will Need Bigger Guns Than That": NJ Sea Captain First to Be Fired Upon by Confederates

From the Dec. 30, 2010 New Jersey Newsroom.com.

A 55-year0old New Jersey sea captain drew the first Confederate fire during the Civil War, some three months before the famous Battle of Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861.  Lame-duck President James Buchanan was under increasing pressure to relieve Major Anderson's beleaguered garrison at Fort Sumter and secretly dispatched the civilian steamer Star of the West under the command of Captain John McGowan of Elizabeth, NJ.

At sunrise of Jan. 9, 1861, while approaching Fort Sumter with 200 badly needed reinforcements, Confederates in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina, fired a shot across his bow, but he continued on his mission, defiantly calling out, "You will need bigger guns than that, boys!"

Then some more rounds hit the ship, which was unarmed, and it wasn't such a joke anymore.  Captain McGowan turned his ship around and left.

McGowan continued to fight the Confederates after that and at his death, 30 years later, was honored.  Few people know his name today.

The New Jersey Civil War Sesquicentennial Committee's Heritage Association hopes to restore his tombstone at Evergreen Cemetery in Hillside which, after all the years, is fairly illegible.

I Have to Wonder What He Had to Say After Shots Hit?  --Old B-Runner