470 SUMTER The chief productions in 1870 were 67,278 bushels of Indian corn, 112,620 of sweet pota- toes, 8,800 Ibs. of rice, 501 bales of cotton, and 13,650 gallons of molasses. There were 14,995 cattle and 5,480 swine. Capital, Leesburg. IV. A W. county of Alabama, bordering on Mississippi, bounded E. by the Tombigbee and intersected by the Noxubee river ; area, about 800 sq. m. ; pop. in 1870, 24,109, of whom 18,907 were colored. The surface is uneven and the soil fertile. It has water communication by the Tombigbee river, and is intersected by the Ala- bama and Chattanooga railroad and a branch of the Mobile and Ohio. The chief produc- tions in 1870 were 334,110 bushels of wheat, 14,941 of sweet potatoes, 2,513 Ibs. of wool, and 11,646 bales of cotton. There were 1,242 horses, 1,957 mules and asses, 2,097 milch cows, 988 working oxen, 3,644 other cattle, 2,249 sheep, and 8,024 swine. Capital, Livingston. sniTKK, Fort, a work built upon an artifi- cial island near the entrance of the harbor of Charleston, S. 0., which it was designed to protect. It stands about 2| m. from Castle Pinckney, the fort near the point of the penin- sula upon which Charleston is built, and about half that distance from Fort Moultrie on Sul- livan's island. It was intended to mount 140 heavy guns, in three tiers ; but at the close of 1860 the fort was still incomplete, few of the guns being mounted. The.United States gar- rison, numbering 109 men,' of whom only 63 were combatants, under Major Robert Ander- son, occupied Fort Moultrie. On the night of Dec. 26 Major Anderson, learning that the se- cessionists had made preparations to capture Fort Moultrie and seize the other fortifications near Charleston, transferred his force to Fort Sumter. Here he was able to mount only 52 of the lighter guns. About the same time commissioners were sent by the state author- ities to demand from the government of the United States the surrender of all the forts in South Carolina. President Buchanan refused, and Fort Sumter was virtually in a state of siege. Early in January, 1861, an unsuccessful attempt was made to throw in supplies, by means of an expedition from New York in the steamer Star of the West. On April 11 Gen. Beauregard, who had been placed in com- mand of the forces raised by the confederate government, and had constructed powerful batteries on every point commanding Fort Sumter, demanded the immediate surrender of the fort. Major Anderson refused, but said that if he was not reenforced by the 15th he would evacuate the fort ; to which Beauregard responded that he would open fire at about half past 4 on the morning of April 12. Fire was accordingly opened, and in a few hours the works were seriously damaged. The bom- bardment was fiercely continued, but no one was hurt. The provisions and ammunition be- ing nearly exhausted, the evacuation of the fort was agreed upon on the afternoon of the 13th, and on the 14th Major Anderson marched out SUN with flying colors. The confederates strength- ened the fort and put in a strong garrison, and until near the close of the war it formed the main defence of Charleston. In April, 1863, it was unsuccessfully bombarded by a monitor fleet under Admiral Du Pont. Still later it was subjected to a heavy fire from batteries erected on Morris island, and reduced almost to a mass of shapeless ruins ; but every direct attempt to take it failed, and it fell into Union hands only when Charleston was finally aban- doned by the confederates in February, 1865. (See CHARLESTON.) On April 14, 1865, just four years after the surrender, the Union flag, the same which had been lowered in 1861, was again formally raised over the dilapidated walls of Fort Sumter. SOFTER, Thomas, an American revolutionary general, born in Virginia in 1734, died near Camden, S. C., June 1, 1832. He was a vol- unteer in the French and Indian war, was pres- ent at Braddock's defeat, and in March, 1776, became lieutenant colonel of the second regi- ment of South Carolina riflemen. After the capture of Charleston by the British in 1780, he took refuge in the swamps of the Santee, and, with the rank of brigadier general,* be- came one of the most active and able partisan leaders of the south. On July 12 he defeated a British detachment on the Catawba, but on Aug. 18 was surprised and routed at Fishing creek by Tarleton. He collected another corps, and on Nov. 12 defeated Col. "Wemyss, who had attacked his camp in Chester district near Broad river. A few days later Tarleton at- tempted to surprise him while encamped at Blackstocks on the Tiger river, but was com- pelled to retreat with severe loss. Sumter was severely wounded in this encounter ; but in March, 1781, he raised three new regiments, and, in concert with Marion, Pickens, and others, harassed the enemy's scattered posts in the low country. In January, 1781, con- gress passed a resolution of thanks to him and his men. He was a member of congress from South Carolina in 1789-' 93, and United States senator in 1801-'9 ; and in 1809 he was appointed minister to Brazil, where he re- mained two years. He was the last surviving general of the revolution. SUN, the central ruling body of the plane- tary system, and the great source of light and heat. The visible orb of the sun, as distin- guished from the complex structure of which that orb is but a part, is a globe about 853,000 m. in diameter. So far as observation ex- tends, this globe is spherical in shape, no dif- ference having been detected in the polar and equatorial diameters. In fact, no single set of measurements, however carefully made, could lead to the conclusion that there is any com- pression in the solar orb, since the equality of the diameters results not from a single set of measures, but from comparisons between many thousands of observations made at Greenwich, Paris, Washington, and other leading observa-
