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®.

[BroJoeK]

Pelham: "Like D’Souza, you find it convenient to copy someone else’s work.
Can’t blame you for trying to up your game."

I've always posted tons of quotes and links to sources.
Until now, only DiogenesLamp regularly complains that I post too much.

[BroJoeK]

Pelham: "Gosh. Maybe he was cleverly hiding his beliefs from his American publishers."

So maybe you can find where Marx was preaching Hegelian dialectics, class warfare and dictatorship-of-the-proletariats to 1850s Americans?

I haven't seen it.

[DiogenesLamp]

And now i’m having to teach you the meaning of English words.

indefinitely
Also found in: Thesaurus, Legal, Encyclopedia, Wikipedia.
in·def·i·nite (ĭn-dĕf′ə-nĭt)
adj.
Not definite, especially:
a. Unclear; vague.
b. Lacking precise limits: an indefinite leave of absence.
c. Uncertain; undecided: indefinite about their plans.

https://www.thefreedictionary.com/indefinitely

indefinitely
adverb
uk
/ɪnˈdef.ɪ.nət.li/ us
/ɪnˈdef.ən.ət.li/
C2
for a period of time with no fixed end:
The negotiations have been put off/postponed indefinitely.

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/indefinitely

[DiogenesLamp]

If you want to avoid war, don't think of your fellow countrymen as the enemy and recognize that they have a vote and a say in what happens to the country too.

And this applied to the British too? Seems as though the defining rule is the boundaries of states, not the entire collective.

Lincoln's "vote" wasn't for war. It was for the continuation of the union.

No different from an abusive husband deciding for the wife that she will not be allowed to leave him. What if she doesn't want to remain in the Union?

There was a major strategic failure by Southern elites. They had been dominant in the early Republic, but they were too attached to slavery and the money it brought in to think clearly about their future and the nation's.

It seems like Washington DC was too attached to slavery and the money it brought in. Why again was it important or necessary to keep states everyone hated in the Union, when those states didn't want to remain in the Union?

We let Cuba go. We let the Philippines go. We didn't keep Mexico. So why was it necessary to keep those states that wanted out?

Also, isn't keeping people against their will the very essence of slavery?

[DiogenesLamp]

I've always posted tons of quotes and links to sources. Until now, only DiogenesLamp regularly complains that I post too much.

You do, and when it isn't misleading, it isn't accurate. You also put your spin on everything, and it's just tedious trying to wade through it.

[StoneWall Brigade]

Let tell you something you loathsome Yankee your Northern ilk were the ones whom originally started Segregation Jim Crow before it was a thing the great Abolitionist whom spoke of human quality with one side of their mouths champion racial segregation on the other you speak of the Klan? Many Blacks, whom who wore the grey were in the Klan I’ve seen the original rolls of them with my very own eyes.
JMACUSA as long as you attack my heritage the honor of my forebears and those of my Southern brethren I’ll flame you out at you like the flame of night I’ll take you and your whole entire piss ant lefty Walt Brigade Lincoln Knights.
We don’t need Lincoln Republicans or the globalist RINO GOP but you need us without “(the Red State Confederate South)” you couldn’t win an election in a thousand years it’s high time we of the South start showing it too

[wardaddy]

These clowns are part of the monument tear down gang

Uniparty worshippers clinging to this fantasy of the Republican Party as some vaunted flawless redeemer

Mainly cause they are obsessed with racism and slavery as original sin of the white race and America and the west

They are BLM pretty much

An infection of this forum...Jonah Goldberg’s skeet ricochet against a whorehouse wall metaphorically

Fresno should have zotted them 20 years ago

[jmacusa]

Piss off Reb. The Ku Klux was born in Pulaski , Tenn. in 1865. Stone Wall Brigade as long as you attack my heritage and my family and forebears who believed in 'The United of America and the nation I call The United States of America, my home, our home I'll flame back.I don't care about points on a f***ing compass my fellow American comes from. As long as we ARE Americans. Americans with hyphens of another country and a compass point. “I'll flame you out at you like the flame of night I'll take you and your entire piss ant lefty Walt Brigade of Lincoln Knights’’.

Are you threatening me you dumb ass? On a conservative web site on a open site on the internet,you cousin f**ing moron, you're making threats?

Better think about what you're doing,And point of fact I'm not a Leftist.

But your Dixiecrat bona fides are showing.

[jmacusa]

I misstate in my post. I mean I don’t want to hyphens in front of Americans names or a compass point as long we as we’re Americans.

[jmacusa]

Thanks Bro Joe K. for the insight.

I get the feeling that in his view of The Civil War he believes everything he hears and understands little.

He seems to listen to voices.

Particularly his own.

[StoneWall Brigade]

You loathsome moronic simp tool of a boomer “flame” means to Roast! Typical commie lefty treasonous Yank that knows jack you’re giving me a pre-school of Yankee interpretation about da “Klan”.
As I said, you treasonous Yankees were the ones whom implemented segregation style Jim Crow style bigotry long before da “Klan” just like you helped implemented slavery the majority Abolitionists families made their big profits off of the slavery trade heck Lincoln himself married into a family of slave owners. For the North, it was never about persevering the the Republic; or human rights or any other phony feel good self-righteous nonsense it was about power control national order.

Also save baseless your empty threats for your next BLM Antifa rally when you tear down yet a another statue or cancel more of this nations fine right heritage.

[BroJoeK]

x to DiogenesLamp: "For you, it’s about purity."

No, sadly, it isn't.
For our FRiend DiogenesLamp it's all about, and only about, polemics.
It's simple, really -- think of DiogenesLamp as a lawyer, his client is the Confederacy.
He knows his client is guilty as h*ll of endless crimes, but he's arguing whatever he thinks might work to get judgment overturned on a technicality, or at least get the sentence reduced, he'll even argue "innocent by reason of insanity" -- that's what his "Lincoln's orders for a war fleet to attack Confederates in Charleston" is all about.

In the end, if he can befuddle & confuse the "jury", that alone might be enough for acquittal.
He especially enjoys turning usual narratives on their heads:

1. Did Confederates attack the Union at Fort Sumter?
   No, according to DiogenesLamp, Lincoln attacked Confederates by ordering a "war fleet" to Charleston.

2. Did Confederates secede to protect slavery?
   No, according to DiogenesLamp, "Northeastern power brokers" ordered invasion of the South to protect their "money flows from Europe".

3. Did "the South" fight to protect slavery?
   No, according to DiogenesLamp, and neither did "the North" fight to abolish it.
   It wasn't "about slavery," but rather "dictator Lincoln" invading to protect his tariff revenues.

4. Was slavery a Southern problem?
   No, according to DiogenesLamp, slavery was the North's problem because they refused to abolish it until 1865, long after slavery was gone from most of the South!

And so it goes, on & on...
It has nothing to do with "purity", simply DiogenesLamp's looking for some way, any way, to turn an argument on it's head.

And maybe get his client acquitted, if not on a technicality, then at least on insanity -- Lincoln's insanity!
I call such reasoning & tactics "Democrat" and some people object to the term, but there it is, it's what they do.

[StoneWall Brigade]

Please all Brojoke does is push the same exact Whiskey Papa (Walt) style cut-paste copy historic revisionist fake history narrative that crap that has long been rejected that has long been dismissed as both historical both accurate and fact.
I long go ago quit responding to his any of his Walt filled copy paste rant posts.

[BroJoeK]

StoneWall Brigade: "We don’t need Lincoln Republicans or the globalist RINO GOP but you need us without “(the Red State Confederate South)” you couldn’t win an election in a thousand years it’s high time we of the South start showing it too"

Right, and that is the ultimate Democrat mindset: rule or ruin, "we Democrats will rule over you or we will ruin you, no other choice possible."

Not so long ago, Southern Democrats were happy to support "Progressives" like Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt, so long as they themselves were to benefit.
But with Harry Truman that began to change and by 1960 Dixiecrats were in full revolt against Northern Democrats.
In 1964 conservative Barry Goldwater Republicans first offered them a viable alternative to Leftist Democrats, so Southerners began a long transition from Democrats to become reliably conservative Republicans.

But what do Southerners do about their Democrat-Dixiecrat past and its profound hatred for d*mnyankee devil Lincolnites?
Well, one alternative StoneWall Brigade suggests here: rule or ruin Republicans, rule over us or ruin us -- and thus restore their lost pride and wreack revenge against the d*mnyankee devil Lincoln.

I'm here to suggest a different alternative, I'm here to suggest you return to your pre-Democrat roots, to the ideals of ancestors who voted not just for moderate Democrats like Jefferson, Madison & Monroe, but also profound patriots like Jackson (three times!) and even the Whigs Harrison & Taylor.
Jackson was the Donald Trump of his age -- people loved him or hated him, but he didn't care and he tolerated no treason.
Whigs Harrison & Taylor were military heroes, they were George Washington type Federalists and today's conservative "establishment" Republicans.
And Southerners supported such Whigs, just as they support Republicans today.

But 1848 was the last time before 1964 that the Deep South supported a Federalist-Whig-Republican.
Between those elections, for 116 years, they went with Democrats and it drove them insane, just as Democrats today drive their voters insane with hatred of the United States and of normal, average Americans.

I'm suggesting the transition from Democrat to back Federalist-Whig-Republican doesn't have to be so hard, and consists of basically just this: stop lying about the past and stop hating the people you wish to support you.
You do that and we're golden, good to go, we can defend our country forever.
But if you stick with your old rule-or-ruin Democrat ways, we will fail and the country will be lost forever.

Your choice.

Imho.

[BroJoeK]

wardaddy: "These clowns are part of the monument tear down gang"

That's rubbish, and it's the kind of thing I refer to by: stop lying.

wardaddy: "Uniparty worshippers clinging to this fantasy of the Republican Party as some vaunted flawless redeemer"

Republicans are a political party and there's very little "holy" about politics.
But Republicans did fight & die to preserve the Union and, yes, to destroy slavery, and we'll stand on that bedrock forever, we will not be moved from it, ever.

wardaddy: "Mainly cause they are obsessed with racism and slavery as original sin of the white race and America and the west"

That's just pure nonsense, though true of Democrats, nothing to do with Republicans.

wardaddy: "They are BLM pretty much"

More lies, typical of Democrats' mindset.
You need to stop that, FRiend.

wardaddy: "Fresno should have zotted them 20 years ago"

Fresno's been awful good about letting us say our piece, so long as we keep it civil.
It's why I contribute monthly out of a very slim bank account.

[wardaddy]

Do you have a life?

[BroJoeK]

StoneWall Brigade: "As I said, you treasonous Yankees were the ones whom implemented segregation style Jim Crow style bigotry long before da “Klan” "

Our FRiend, Stoney, is here talking about pre-Civil War "Black Codes" in some Northern states, like Illinois.
While Democrats in the South held nearly 4 million African-Americans enslaved, and were even re-enslaving some freed-blacks, in Northern states like Illinois, Democrats wrote "Black Codes" hoping to prevent run-away slaves from settling there.

Now our FRiend, Stoney, wishes to blame those Black Codes on racist Republicans, like, for example, Rail-splitter Lincoln -- see, see, a racist SOB!
But the real fact is that while Democrats in Southern Illinois were writing Black Code laws to keep out African Americans, Republicans in Northern Illinois were accepting the fastest growing freed-black population of any state between 1820 and 1860.

So our Stoney is just a typical Democrat projecting his own party's misdeeds onto Republicans.

StoneWall Brigade: "just like you helped implemented slavery the majority Abolitionists families made their big profits off of the slavery trade "

Of course, as many Lost Causers delight in pointing out, under British law slavery was lawful in all 13 colonies before 1776.
But it's worth noting that of the Declaration signers only half of Northerners owned slaves, while all the Southerners did.
By the Constitutional Convention of 1787 some Northern states were already abolishing slavery and none of the Northern delegates were slaveholders, while among Southern delegates only two did not own slaves (both were originally Northerners).

It is also a fact (as best I can tell), that every Founder, North & South, professed to favor long-term gradual abolition, and many took significant steps in that direction, including Washington, Jefferson, Madison & Monroe.

That's why we say: the important fact is not that our Founders accepted the ages-old practice of slavery, but rather that they promised and planned to abolish it, over time.
And, yes, they kept their promises until, roughly, 1831 and the Nate Turner Slave Rebellion, after which Southern eyes opened and minds changed.

StoneWall Brigade: "...heck Lincoln himself married into a family of slave owners. "

So did Ulysses Grant, but Lincoln's family were abolitionists and Lincoln never owned a slave.
Grant was given a slave by his father-in-law and set the man free.

StoneWall Brigade: "For the North, it was never about persevering the the Republic; or human rights or any other phony feel good self-righteous nonsense it was about power control national order."

And there yet again is the Democrat mindset: doesn't matter what Republicans said at the time about preserving the Union or freeing slaves, that's all just nonsense, Democrats tell us, the real reasons are... projections of Democrats' own outlooks.

The real truth is that for Abraham Lincoln it was exactly about fulfilling his oath of office to "preserve, protect and defend" the US Constitution, to the best of his ability, so help him God.

Democrats had a different idea then, just as they do today.

[BroJoeK]

StoneWall Brigade: "...cut-paste copy historic revisionist fake history narrative that crap that has long been rejected that has long been dismissed as both historical both accurate and fact."

"Rejected" and "Dismissed" only by Democrats who loathe & despise the truth and would rather believe anything than what actually happened.

You will need to, first, get over that and, second, stop threatening Republicans.

There's no other way.
Otherwise we lose everything, FRiend.

[jmacusa]

Ok Stone Wall. Yeah. I'm hooking up with the local Strumgruppen of my local Antifa chapter and we're marching on your town.

Death to the fascists(sar.)!. Deluded fool. You didn't understand a thing I posted. You, projecting your provincial division, ''loathsome Yank''. "Treasonous Yankee''. Union forces committing acts of treason against their own army. Didn't tell you recently to piss off? Do it. Piss off.

[HandyDandy]

You are a sad excuse for a teacher. Why did you leave out the following?

indefinitely (ɪnˈdɛfɪnɪtlɪ) adv without any limit of time or number Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

And the synonyms?

indefinitely adverb endlessly, continually, for ever, ad infinitum, sine die (Latin), till the cows come home (informal) The visit has now been postponed indefinitely. Collins Thesaurus of the English Language – Complete and Unabridged 2nd Edition. 2002 © HarperCollins Publishers 1995, 2002

Therefore at the risk of this quibble going on till the cows come home, i.e., ad infinitum, why don’t you just apologize to the southerners whom you have maligned. Just pick another word which doesn’t make your statement a lie. Fair enough?