April 12, 1861: The Civil War Begins

On April 12, 1861, Confederate troops fired the opening shots of the Civil War at Fort Sumter in South Carolina. This month marks the 160th anniversary of the beginning of the war, the deadliest conflict ever fought on American soil. The Civil War lasted four years and resulted in an estimated 620,000 deaths and 1.5 million casualties. Approximately one in four soldiers that went to war never came back home. This impacted families, communities, and the entire country for generations to come.

Historical photograph of Fort Sumter The years leading up to the beginning of the Civil War were filled with increasing tensions between northern and southern states. In 1860, Abraham Lincoln was elected president by a strictly northern vote. The election was the impetus for southern states, who were already wrangling with the North on issues like slavery, states’ rights, and westward expansion, to begin the process of secession. Four days after the election, South Carolina Senator James Chesnut resigned his Senate seat and began drafting secession documents. Before long, six more states joined South Carolina to form the Confederate States of America on February 8, 1861. That number increased to 11 states after the fall of Fort Sumter. Four border states (Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri) held enslaved persons but remained loyal to the Union.

Exterior view of Fort Sumter Fort Sumter, originally built as a coastal garrison, was located at the entrance to Charleston Harbor. Confederate General P. G. T. Beauregard, from the newly formed Confederate States Army, demanded federal officials turn over the fort. He claimed the fort was located in Confederate territory and thus belonged to the South. President Lincoln refused and made attempts to send a ship to resupply the fort. The ship was turned away by Confederate guns.

Tensions grew, and Beauregard finally sent US officials an ultimatum – abandon the fort or face destruction. At 4:30 a.m. on April 12th, some 500 soldiers from the South Carolina Militia opened fire on 80 Federal soldiers inside the fort. The bombardment continued for 34 hours until the afternoon of April 13th, when the garrison commander, Major Robert Anderson, surrendered the fort. Though there were no fatalities on either side during the Battle of Fort Sumter, the conflict marked the beginning of more than 10,000 military engagements that occurred between 1861-1865.

Interior View of Fort Sumter Fold3® has an extensive collection of Civil War records including:

Brady Civil War Photos: The Civil War is considered the first major conflict to be photographed extensively. Mathew Brady led a photography team that captured images of the war using a mobile studio and darkroom. Civil War Maps: This collection of 2,000 detailed battle maps provides insight into Civil War engagements. Some maps show the placement of regiments and the movement of troops. Civil War “Widows Pensions” Files: Only 20% of Civil War pension files are digitized, but if you are lucky enough to find the pension file for your ancestor, you’ll uncover a treasure trove of information. Civil War Service Records: We have service records for both Union and Confederate troops. These records are organized by state. Service Records for US Colored Troops: Approximately 179,000 Black men served in the US Army and another 19,000 in the US Navy. Despite facing racism and discrimination, the US Colored Troops served with valor and honor. These records are organized by regiment. Southern Claims Approved: After the war, the US government established the Southern Claims Commission. This office accepted petitions for compensation for items taken by Union troops during the war. In addition to these collections, Fold3 has more than 150 additional collections that contain 43 million Civil War records. Start searching our Civil War collection today on Fold3®.

FLT-bird: "The Southern States declared Independence from that government.
They never proposed to overthrow the US federal government nor did they wish to resist the US federal government.
They simply wanted nothing more to do with it.
It was a war of Independence just like the one their fathers and grandfathers fought."

None of that is true.
In fact, Confederates tried to overthrow the US federal government in Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, West Virginia, Kansas, Oklahoma and New Mexico.
They also sent military forces to invade Pennsylvania, Ohio & Indiana, and operated guerilla forces in California, Colorado and Vermont.

In 1861 there were 35 Civil War battles fought, 25 of them in Union states & territories.
In 1861 more Confederate soldiers died invading the Union than in defending the Confederacy.

DiogenesLamp: "A statewide democratic vote for independence is not a "rebellion" or an "insurrection."
Nations have been doing it quite a lot lately, and nobody is accusing England of "rebelling" from the European Union."

Brexit followed specific procedures laid out in the EU's constitution and laws.
So, the Brits did not:

Declare unilateral secession as a fait accompli.
Seize dozens of major EU properties, many even before the Brexit vote.
Threaten EU officials with violence.
Fire on EU ships.
Start a war against the EU.
Formally declare war against the EU.
Wage war against the EU in other EU countries.

So any comparison of 1860+ with Brexit is ludicrous, laughable.

cowboyusa: "The war against Confederate Treason"

DiogenesLamp: "And tell me again who got convicted of Treason?
I know Jefferson Davis did not..."

The US Constitution could not be clearer on the definition of "treason," but still Lincoln and most Republicans were willing to forego trials for treason in exchange for Confederates' unconditional surrender and peace.

Even today, that seems like a pretty fair bargain.

jeffersondem to Bull Snipe: "You are speculating about what would have happened if the South had won...
Your “what if” distraction does avoid discussing what has actually happened after the disaster at Appomattox: the effective elimination of the 9th and 10th amendments as safeguards against federal usurpation."

But there's no need to "speculate" about what did actually happen historically: the Solid South was happy to support "Progressive" and "New Deal" policies of Democrats like Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt.
Then Southerners voted solidly for Progressive Democrat Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson, against Dwight Eisenhower!
And outside the Deep South they even supported Lyndon Johnson's Great Society.

So there's no need to speculate -- we know that Southern Democrats loved, loved "Progressivism", "Liberalism", Big Government and all the rest so long as they themselves were to be the beneficiaries.
It's only when they discovered somebody else outrooting them at the Federal teats that Southerners suddenly re-discovered constitutional conservatism.

Hey! Better late than never, but don't be rewriting history, Mr. Democrat.

DoodleDawg: "Not really since independence wasn't in the cards for about one-third the population."

DiogenesLamp: It certainly wasn't, and Washington DC fully intended to keep it that way."

What 1860 Republicans in Washington "fully intended" was to prevent Democrats like Crazy Roger Taney from declaring abolition "unconstitutional".
As Lincoln said, in 1858:

"We shall lie down pleasantly dreaming that the people of Missouri are on the verge of making their State free; and we shall awake to the reality, instead, that the Supreme Court has made Illinois a slave State."

What Republicans in Washington fully intended was to prevent the expansion of slavery into western territories & new states, especially when forced on territories through trickery like the Kansas Lecompton constitution.

What Republicans in Washington fully intended was to prevent reopening of the African slave-trade, outlawed since 1808 but in 1860 attempting a comeback.

Republicans in Washington did not in 1860 intend to attack slavery in the South, but that didn't matter to Southern Fire Eaters, even Republicans' limited opposition was plenty enough to justify (in their minds) calls for secession.

But some Republicans (likely Lincoln) did understand that with Civil War would come the question of "contraband of war", and through it, authority of Congress to declare as "contraband of war" slaves held by states in rebellion against the United States.

And so it happened.

jeffersondem: "Is this a reference to the United States Constitution handed down by the Founding Fathers - the one Abraham Lincoln twice took an oath to protect and defend?"

The same one Jefferson Davis swore multiple times to preserve, protect and defend, as a US Army officer, and a Mississippi Congressman, as US Secretary of War and twice as a US Senator from Mississippi.

And yet, when the chips were down, how much did all those oaths mean to Jefferson Davis?

Squat.

DiogenesLamp: "The same conditions (slavery) existed in the North too.
The slave states remaining in the Union were Delaware, Kentucky, Missouri, West Virginia, and Maryland."

And yet, and yet... when it suits his purposes, DiogenesLamp includes those states as part of "the South".
Here, suddenly, they become "the North".

Here's why: first, DiogenesLamp needs, desperately, those states plus Unionist regions of the Upper South to be included in "the South" so that he can claim "75% of US exports came from Southern products."
If those are now, suddenly, "the North" then the truth is revealed as more like 50% of 1860 US exports were Deep South cotton.

Of course, 50% is still a lot -- it's huge -- but DiogenesLamp just can't be satisfied with the mere truth, always has to exaggerate.

So, it's OK if DiogenesLamp wishes to call those Southern Union states "the North", but then, let's be consistent and include their exports as "Northern products."

The Confederacy had only one real export: cotton and it was 50% of 1860 total US exports.

DiogenesLamp: "George III was simply far more rational than Lincoln.
George III could have conquered the US, but he didn't feel the bloodshed was worth it."

theOlLine Rebel (#170): "I wouldn’t go that far.
The so-called RevWar was 8 years.
Much longer than the so-called CW.
George III and Parliament was not willing to give up a long time.
But eventually they did acquiesce."

And there's much more to it -- the Brits were not just fighting Americans, they were basically fighting the whole world!
Brits had troops & ships scattered fighting battles everywhere you can imagine -- from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean to the Caribbean, plus Americans were powerfully supported by French, Spanish & Dutch among others.

Bottom line: in terms of percentages of national wealth, populations and natural resources committed by British to the war against Americans and our allies over nearly eight years, Brits spent just as much, if not more, than the Union did defeating a relatively weak and concentrated Confederacy with no allies.

So it wasn't that Brits didn't try, rather that they had tried to do too much, and so failed.
A modern term for that is "mission creep".

Bull Snipe: "The Power of the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States in time of war."

DiogenesLamp: "The president has the right to suspend the constitution during a war? "

The idea of "contraband of war" was recognized and practiced by all powers of that age -- Union, Confederate and foreign powers such as the Brits.
Properties necessary for war could be, and were, declared "contraband" and seized under laws of war.

Confederate armies seized "contraband of war" (anything they deemed useful) whenever they invaded Union states like Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana.
That seized "contraband" included freed-blacks who were then sent South for sale in slave-markets.

When Union armies seized Confederate "contraband" like slaves the Unioin declared such slaves freed and often gave them paid jobs.

It was not a constitutional issue in times of war, rebellion, insurrection, "domestic violence", invasion and/or treason.

DiogenesLamp: "Race obsessed big city tax and spend liberals won that war.
The Southerners were paying for the government, and the "Mercantilists" were spending the money on big government projects in the Northern states."

Sadly, our FRiend DiogenesLamp is utterly confused & disoriented about the difference between Republicans and Democrats.
He thinks Republicans were Democrats and Democrats were Republicans because that's what he wishes to believe and so completely, absolutely refuses to learn the real truth.

The real truth is that Republicans then were much the same as we are today: small towns & suburbs, farmers, small businesses, religious conservatives, professionals, skilled workers, constitutionalists, patriots, strong on national defense and law enforcement.
Republicans were adamantly opposed to slavery in their own states and in western territories, but as for the South were willing to live & let live as the Constitution required.

And Democrats then were much as they are today -- an alliance of Big City, Big Business, globalists investment class interests with poor immigrant bosses (i.e., Tammany Hall) and the extra-voting powers of slaveholders.
Today "slaveholders" translates as the political power of big-city projects warehousing millions of welfare-supported poor.

But for some reason DiogenesLamp just can't accept simple facts and instead desperately desires to confuse & conflate Republicans to Democrats, Democrats to Republicans until no sense can be made of history whatever.

DiogenesLamp: "Their goal wasn't to retain slavery.
They could have done that simply by staying in the USA.
What they wanted was independence from corrupt Washington DC which was taking 73% of it's money from the Southern states, and spending it on boondoggle projects in the Northern states."

Those are total malicious lies, invented first by Confederates themselves, then expanded by Lost Causers.
The truth is, it was "all about slavery" because that's what they said in 1861.
Sure, some of them complained about Federal corruption, but it was their Washington, they owned it, they had ruled it almost continuously since the election of 1800 until secession in 1861.

So it was all disingenuous, it was all just nonsense, the real reason for secession was that being out of power in Washington, Southern Democrats would be subject to the same "oppression" they themselves had imposed for the previous 60 years!
And that would imperil the institution of slavery, or so they said.

Bull Snipe: "Slavery ended in this country as a result of the war."

DiogenesLamp: "But you aren't explaining how the power to end it was legal."

I think Bull Snipe has explained a lot, but DiogenesLamp refuses to learn, no doubt because you just hate, hate the truth, any d*mned lie is better, right?

Here's the explanation: at the time, there were at least three legal, constitutional methods to abolish slavery:

Any state could & did abolish its own slavery when & how they wished.
Congress could & did abolish slavery in US territories and international importations of slaves.
During wartime enemy slaves could be declared "contraband of war" and seized -- Confederate armies seized freed Northern blacks for sale in Southern slave-markets.
Union armies accepted runaway slaves, declared them freed and offered them protection and paid employment.
A Constitutional amendment abolishing slavery passed Congress in 1864 and was ratified by states in 1865.

Any normal person can easily understand that, but DiogenesLamp for some reason refuses.

Archie Bunker on steroids: "Every Biden executive order is another shell lobbed by a union cannon on the 13 year old boys and old men starving in the trenches of Petersburg in March 65."

Those poor people were victims of a tyrannical Confederate government the likes of which had not been seen before or since.
They did not volunteer, they were forced like slaves to defend & die for a cause that was not just wrong, but had been lost for at least a year.
Their Confederate leaders were offered much better peace terms but absolutely refused anything better than "unconditional surrender".

The fault was Jefferson Davis' and nobody else's.

Archie Bunker on steroids: "The civil war was the beginning of the end for us.
A big part of that war was the definition of federalism and how that should look in America.
Unfortunately we can never have that argument because we can’t unbundle that discussion from slavery"

Right! And that is one of the greatest disservices performed by the lunatic Democrats who declared secession & war on the United States, beginning in 1860.
And today Democrats are doing it again, but this time with subtlety & deceits which very few are equipped to see through and many are as destroyed by as were those poor Confederate draftees at Petersburg in 1865.

x: "All this argument about the war 160 years ago reflects a loss of faith in America."

I'd be tempted to agree, except for the fact that our Lost Causers have been making similar arguments for, what is it now, 156 years?
So it's not a sudden "loss of faith" so much as a permanent cultural condition, passed down over generations, seemingly along with mothers' milk, by Democrats who, just as now, taught their children to hate the United States.

So, anti-Federalist rejection is taught first.
Secessionists' hatred is taught next, followed by Lost Causer anger against the United States.
Patriotism may, or may not, come later in life.

Respect for Republicans' defense of original constitutional & Christian values?
Naw, maybe never.

But it's not a new thing, its a permanent condition and somehow we've survived these past 233 years despite it.
I'm only concerned about it because the threats Americans face today seem more bewildering and pernicious than any I can remember.

It would be really, truly nice, if for a change we'd all be on the same team.
Sure, Trump's team is a great start, but how long can it last?

DL: “He (Lincoln) actually supported an effort to amend the constitution to preserve slavery indefinitely.”

Shame on you. Still spouting the same old lie about the Corwin Amendment. This has been explained to you innumerable times. I remember the time you posted in a Civil War thread that “Lincoln stated in his First Inaugural Address that he would make Slavery express and irrevocable!!” That was so funny! I see that you have measurably watered that down now. But it is still a lie no matter how many times you repeat it. I know you won’t listen, but I mention this just for the hapless reader who stumbles upon your internet lies.

You ignore the undeniable fact that southerners, regardless of pride in their Confederate past, tend to be unwavering patriotic America-loving devotees.

The south is...as commie Dems love to point out...a stronghold of Republicanism. New England is not at all. They’d rather insult American ideals as a whole.

In fact I’ve noticed that southerners tend to only hate the US of the CW, while Dems (yes, now) only LOVE the US without qualifier during theCW.

You mean like D’Souza’s claim that the KKK was the military wing of the Democrat Party? Which era of the Klan would that have been... when Lincoln’s Democrat VP took over as President? Or the era when a couple of Republican governors supported the Klan? Maybe it was when Catholic Al Smith was the Democrat nominee. Surely having received the D’Souza degree in history you can tell us when and where the Democrat party organized the Klan. And maybe tell us what era that was. Or whether maybe they organized it three separate times.

Or how about his claim that Woodrow Wilson was the first progressive President? But Teddy Roosevelt was President before Wilson. And TR advocated the income tax. The income tax Amendment process began in his administration. And the National Monetary Commission that created the Federal Reserve got its start under Teddy. Weren’t those progressive policies? And when Teddy ran for President in 1912 didn’t he run on the Progressive Party ticket? Wouldn’t a historian writing about the Progressive Era know this stuff?

D’Souza of course knows that what he writes is bullcrap. His fan club won’t, and that’s all that he needs. He’s dealing in polemics and he’s indifferent to facts, a habit that once got him fired from a Christian college and which another time got him tossed in the slammer. You’d think he’d learn but you’d be wrong. You’d think his fan club would learn. You’d probably be wrong about that, too.

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