[Ditto]

"The day before Fort Sumter the USS Harriet Lane fired a shot at the steamer Nashville as it was entering Charleston harbor. The Harriet Lane sought to block the Nashville from entering because it did not fly the union flag even though it was a confederate vessle entering a confederate port. It is traditionally considered the first shot of the war."

Wrong, wrong and wrong. It was April 12, while Sumpter was being shelled, not the day before. It was the USRC Harriet Lane, (U S Revenue Cutter) that fired a shot across the bow (they did not fire for effect) on the Nashville because the Nashville had no flag, US or CSA, on her mast. After the shot, the Nashville got the message and raised the Stars and Stripes and was allowed to pass. A US Cutter would have fired a shot across the bow of any ship entering a US Harbor that had no flag be it in 1861, 1821, or 2001. That is the protocol.

[GOPcapitalist]

Wrong, wrong and wrong. It was April 12, while Sumpter was being shelled , not the day before.

Not true.

"Designed as a revenue cutter, Harriet Lane was named for President James Buchanan's niece, who served as the bachelor president's unofficial First Lady. Originally based out of New York, the ship fired the first shot of the Civil War as she tried to stop a ship inward bound to Charleston on the night before the bombardment of Fort Sumter on April 12, 18161." - Lincoln Paine, An Historical Encyclopedia of the Ships of the World