April 12, 1861: The Civil War Begins

Fold3 ^ | April 1, 2021 | Jenny Ashcraft

[gattaca]

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®.

[DiogenesLamp]

Don't be ridiculous -- Confederates never denied demanding Fort Sumter's immediate surrender and firing the first shots when Maj. Anderson refused.

The trouble with you is that when you are proven wrong, you act as if it never happened, and just come back and repeat the same thing you were proven wrong about.

I've seen this many times before, and this is why I don't try very hard to respond to you.

[the OlLine Rebel]

I should’ve added, that the English-speaking world owes us a great deal of gratitude.

Our people did something and basically put a stop to English nonsense.

When (precious few) people state that the world owes the US a debt, they really can see that it’s true in multiple ways.

[DiogenesLamp]

Shame on you. Still spouting the same old lie about the Corwin Amendment.

What part is the lie? Did Lincoln not call for it's passage during his first inaugural address? Did he not personally send notification to all the Southern governors that it had passed the congress? (Not constitutionally required.) Was it not his very own Secretary of State that ramrodded it through the Senate, and assured everyone that he could get New York to ratify it?

You *WANT* it not to be so, but it is so none the less.

[DiogenesLamp]

The country was founded in 1776. Interestingly the map doesn't show how many states were slave states in 1776, probably because this harshes their narrative.

All the states were slave states when the nation was founded, and most of them were still slave states in 1787 when the Constitution was written.

[DiogenesLamp]

I hate to be persistent, but at what point did the North become indifferent to the worldwide problem of slavery?

Well they didn't invade the Caribbean or Brazil, so I guess they pretty much didn't give an actual sh*t about slavery, they only cared about keeping the South under the control of the Northeastern robber barons.

Slavery was just their rationalization of what they did.

[jmacusa]

I know what I’m talking about. The simple fact of the matter is the South went to war to preserve an economic system based on the use of slave labor and lost.

The North went to war to preserve the Union and end slavery. It did that.

Now, you coward. Are you going to answer the question I asked you?

If you’re unable or unwilling to then shut up and slink back under your rock.

[jmacusa]

Stop your lying Lampster. Between 1774 and 1804 the North abolished slavery.

“”Lincoln the dictator’’ Yeah right.

You are without a doubt the dumbest, most pathetic Civil War ‘’historian’’ ever.
No matter how many times you get your head handed to you, you come back for more.
Like the dog to it’s vomit, the fool to his folly.
You’re that fool.

[StoneWall Brigade]

Is it my job to do your research for you?. Are you going to be like Non here, and start dulling out the homework assignments? You’re post is absolute bullshit your data even more bullshit, and D-Souza is a lying hack psuedo con man of the highest order.

I’ll take every God fearing conservative southern DEMOCRAT DIXIECRAT over your weak ass North Eastern mid western globalist Neocon RINO leftists marxists Hitler centralized state communist Lincoln Republicans any day of the week.

Btw Lloyd Garrison and Harriet Tubman should have been hanged from the gallows for treason in supporting John Brown, oh yeah it was the Abolitionist and the “Republicans” who sought to overthrow the constitution and the republic.
The grand old party sent money arms by the loads Garrison/Tubbman were the lead in recruiters to accomplish it the problem was that Brown was a total nut case who couldn’t plan and act accordingly so for lil awhile the Republican party plan for national empire was halted.

[StoneWall Brigade]

Such bullshit the North certainly did help expand profit off and kept slavery right up until the very end you also were the first ones that had also racist segregation laws many loopholes in the phony Abolition legislation up North kept various forms of slavery intact that went unnoticed.

JMCUSA you wanna talk about fool? You’re the fool! Treasonous traitor to our Republic; you radical Yankess for years worked with the radical communist left and the globalist together seeking out to destroy our nation’s history our heritage now the yankee pipe dream of empire II NWO New world order governance is nearly complete.

[jmacusa]

Northern Democrats were the segregationists, not Republicans. Southern segregationists were far more numerous thorough out the South for decades after the war , created Jim Crow and created the Ku Klux Klan.
The fool here is you you, you Confederate sympathizing moron

And don’t you EVER accuse me of being some globalist radical
seeking to destroy this nation, or EVER call me a traitor out to destroy this great nation, my home and the land I love, the land my family members shed blood for from the Civil War to WW1, WW2, Korea and Vietnam you f’ing asshole.

[FLT-bird]

The map is wrong anyway. New Jersey still had slavery in 1860. They just called it by a different name. Also several other Northern states still had slaves long after they were listed there as being “free”. They got rid of it only very slowly and through grandfather clauses....eg Connecticut didn’t ban slavery until 1854.

[FLT-bird]

You gotta love how some of these historical revisionist Yankees try to equate the Democrat party of Andrew Jackson in the 1830s or Jeffersonian Democrats of the mid 19th century with the modern Democrat Party. LOL! uhhhh.....no. Totally different. Things have changed a lot over a century and a half.

Just look at the changes that have happened in the last 30 years. The Democrats have gone from a blue collar party of the “working man” to the party of Wall Street and one that calls many of their former supporters “Deplorables” and expresses non stop hatred of them. The Republicans are changing from the party of Country Clubs and the Chamber of Commerce to the party of blue collar workers and Main Street against the interests of Wall Street. Things change.

[Vermont Lt]

GW was the epitome of a CT Deep State Skull and Bones politician. He is so NOT a southerner.

[BroJoeK]

x: "Hanson is intelligent and insightful, but a lot of what he wrote in the Bush years is embarrassing.
He was enthusiastic for the Iraq War and too willing to pretend that his classical education made him an expert on things military."

I respected & shared Hanson's opinions then and now.
What changed was my perception of a serious IQ behind Bush's War on Terror policies & tactics.
Today those seem rather to have been driven, net-net-net, by sheer stupidity, the ultimate sin.
D'Souza's "crime" seems to be that he was trying to find a smarter solution before the rest of us were willing to admit we needed one.

Donald Trump's critique of Bush policy is still hard for me to swallow, even though Trump's right on all counts:

1. Why the h*ll overthrow Saddam?
   Sure, he's a bad guy, really bad, Joseph Stalin-type bad, but he was also a staunch enemy of today's Nazi Germany: Iran.
   Overthrowing Saddam is today's equivalent to starting war against Nazi Germany by invading Soviet Russia!

2. You know what else Saddam did?
   He somewhat protected over a million Christians in Iraq, reduced today by ~80%.

3. If, indeed, we have to go in, then our job is not "nation building", certainly not fighting somebody else's civil war, that's bull crap.
   Instead, our job is to destroy what needs it, put a new regime in charge and then get-the-h*ll out, excepting, as Trump says: we protect & keep their oil.

Maybe someday somebody will make a strong case that, yes, all said & done, Bush II did the right things.
But so far, I've not heard it and will be most skeptical.

[BroJoeK]

Good day to you, sir!

jmacusa: "Time and again I ask the Johnny Reb wanna be’s a simple question:
If the South had won the war would it have ended slavery?"

Actually, a good many of our Lost Causers have argued on CW threads that Confederates were, themselves, right on the verge of abolition, had not the Union prevented it.

Their claim is that by 1860 slavery was dying already, that with independence the Confederacy would grow its own industrial production and with industry would come, like magic, abolition.
Others say that abolition might not happen right away, but would certainly come with increasing mechanization & technology making slavery "obsolete".
Further, they say, just as the rest of the world abolished slavery by the mid-late 1800s, so the Confederacy would have also abolished it no later than the early 1900s.

But all that is pure nonsense, horse-feed after the horse is done with it...

All of that ignores the fact that the defeat & destruction of the Confederacy was a key event in worldwide abolition, motivating many other countries to "see the light" and follow suit.
In the years & decades after the US Civil War countries around the world began abolishing slavery -- from the Caribbean & South America to Africa, Egypt, Turkey, India, Japan & China, all saw "the handwriting on the wall" and moved accordingly.

Now just suppose Confederates had won military victory and independence, slavery given a new & powerful lease on life, and the Confederacy itself began to expand into "slave-friendly" lands?
How eager would all those slave-countries be to abolish something now supported by a potent military, economic & social force?

Finally, dare I even mention this?
Decades after the rest of the world officially abolished slavery, slavery's ideas & ideals reared their ugly heads yet again in, of all places, Nazi Germany.
Nazis wanted to make slaves of Jews & others (many others) and so came to Americans in the 1930s to learn how to do it!
Imagine, had the Confederate slavocracy then ruled in the Golden Circle, the Nazis would find a very willing ally.

[BroJoeK]

rockrr: "VDH’s parroted characterization of “January 6th riots” came as a huge disappointment to me."

I missed that.
It seems a lot of people plenty smart enough to know better swallowed & regurgitated the Left's characterizations of the "January 6 riots".
I am both flabbergasted & at a loss to explain it: what's wrong with those people?
Do they know something I don't, or did they miss seeing something obvious to me?

The RINO rogue's gallery list is long, beginning at the top with McConnell, Cheney & Kinzinger.
If it also includes Hanson, then I'd be disappointed in him and suppose that, like some others, he just can't hit the Left's fast balls any more...

Too bad.

[wardaddy]

Amen on Dixiecrats over GOPe libs

Man talk radio liars sure have pimped that narrative enough

[BroJoeK]

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

Agreed, but I don't ignore that.
The explanation is that Democrats have always taught their children to hate the United States, except when they themselves rule over us.
This fact is so very powerful I suspect it could help explain why a staunch Republican like Teddy Roosevelt split apart his majority Republican party in 1912, thus electing Southern Democrat Woodrow Wilson president.
Even in 1912 war was on the horizon and really smart people like Teddy Roosevelt would want to be certain the South is on-board for whatever war the US might need to fight.

theOlLine Rebel: "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."

I agree that New England seems to have gone nuts, careening beyond the reach of reasonable discourse.
But New England represents only 2% of our land and 4% of our population, and even, of those six states, only three (MA, VT & RI) are solid-solid blue.
The rest have at least a few conservatives to keep them from blithering insanity.

My point is: why be obsessed with New England?

theOlLine Rebel: "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."

Partisan Democrats are always in opposition, except when they themselves rule over us.
Sure, you might say the Civil War was an exception to that, however, remember its cause: the ruling Democrat majority in 1860 was split in half by a small minority of Deep South Fire Eaters and so lost to the minority Republicans (Lincoln).
Having first split their majority Democrat party, Fire Eaters soon went on to split the nation and then declared war against the United States!
Most Northern Democrats saw that Confederate Democrats were the weaker side and so joined Republicans to defeat them.

After the CW that old North-South Democrat alliance quickly reformed and was joined by some RINOs like Salmon Chase, effectively ending Reconstruction in 1876.
That alliance held pretty strong until, roughly, 1964, when, of all people, Lyndon Johnson kissed-off Southern white voters in favor of "civil rights" -- and Republican Barry Goldwater, for the first time ever, offered them a viable Republican alternative.

Bottom line: for Democrats it's always "rule or ruin" -- if Democrats can't rule over us, they'll work to ruin us, today, just as in, for example, 1860.

[jmacusa]

An enslaved population was crucial to the Confederate war effort.

[HandyDandy]

DL: “What part is the lie?”

The part where you say the amendment would have “preserved slavery indefinitely”. You are stuck on stupid. Once again, the amendment was intended to put the matter of Slavery up to the individual States and out of the hands of the Federal government. To reiterate (not for you, you are hopeless and Lincoln lives in your head rent-free), it was a last ditch effort by the North to give the South no reason to leave and one final attempt to preserve the Union.
Do you not understand what you are saying? To say it would have preserved Slavery indefinitely is a terrible judgement by you on the Southern States. Not to mention that you are contradicting yourself, as you have told us (in other threads) that Slavery was surely going to die out on its own.
In any event, you have made tremendous improvement since you first stated that, “Lincoln said in his First Inaugural that he intended to make Slavery express and irrevocable”!

No need to reply.