History says: "guards repelled a group of local civilians who intended to occupy the fort."
I'd call that an "assault", but think carefully before you deny everything.
If there was no "assault", if there was no intent to take over Fort Barrancas by force, then we are really just talking about some innocent civilians out for a midnight walk who happened to stroll past the fort while the guard shift was doing routine target practice.
In short, that makes the incident totally innocent and therefore nothing -- repeat nothing -- to do with Civil War.
For this January 1861 incident to be "first shots of the Civil War" that "group of local civilians" must have had nefarious intentions to assault & occupy Fort Barrancas.
If their intentions were innocent, it was not Civil War.
So which was it, Civil War or not Civil War?
And where did you get that? I would guess it came from the people doing the shooting, and it may not accurately reflect what occurred.
On the night of Jan. 8, the men had raised a drawbridge around the fort, which dated to when Spain controlled Florida, because of growing tensions in the surrounding Naval yard, said historian David Ogden, a ranger at Gulf Islands National Seashore.According to Slemmer's report, just after midnight, guards heard footsteps outside and challenged the intruders and heard no response, Ogden said. Slemmer made no mention of shots being fired.
...
Ogden and others said it's a stretch to say what happened at Fort Barrancas started the Civil War — the would-be attackers, a small group of drunken and rowdy locals, left as soon as the warning shot sounded — if there ever was one. The National Park Service has marked some anniversaries of the incident with candlelight tours of the fort.