No, the first blood shed was on Pratt street in Baltimore when Confederate goons fired on Union troops passing through on their way to Washington.
Hello Ditto. It's been a long time.
Your memory is off about the first blood. Your view is a common misperception probably encouraged by Baltimore. The first blood was actually shed in Fort Sumter during the April 12-14 bombardment. No one was killed in the bombardment, but two or three Union guys were wounded in the fort during the bombardment
If it is first deaths you are talking about, that happened in Texas on April 15th, 1861. Pro-Union Tejanos threatened to hang Confederate supporters in South Texas. John Salmon R.I.P. Ford (later my great-great grandfather's commander in the war) sent Texas Rangers down to Zapata County, Texas to arrest those threatening to kill Texas officials. Nine of the Tejanos were killed in a battle with the Rangers on April 15.
The Tejanos were Hispanic Texans who were supporters of the Mexican Juan Cortinas. Cortinas had invaded and taken over the town of Brownsville, Texas a year or two before the war. There were insufficient federal troops in the Rio Grande Valley at that time. The people of Brownsville later (but before the war) had to hire the Mexican Army to protect them from Cortinas. Texas Rangers under R.I.P. Ford and a company of Federal troops then went down to the Valley and chased Cortinas across the Rio Grande. The Rangers went into Mexico after Cortinas, but Cortinas managed to get away in a battle.
One of Texas' complaints in their secession document was that the Feds weren't sufficiently protecting Texas from invasion. Sound familiar?
Unless they had instructions from the Southern Government, I would suggest the Confederates were as responsible for them as the Union was responsible for John Brown.
Also the reports would seem to indicate that these people attacking the Massachusetts troops were all Marylanders, which If I recall correctly was a Union state. Dissidents, it would appear.
No, the first officially sanctioned bloodshed would still appear to be the attempted invasion of Virginia.