Did they? Do you know for a fact that the person who fired that shot owned a slave?
Edmund Ruffin is often considered to have fired the first shot in the Civil War. He was definitely a slave holder. He was also, as I recall, an innovator in husbandry. But I digress. Consider:
. "But, I thought it worth mentioning for anyone not aware, there is some controversy over attributing the first shot of the CW to Edmund Ruffin.
Ruffin may have fired ONE of the first shots, but it seems unlikely that he fired THE first shot.
Robert Hendrickson, in "Sumter, The First Day of the Civil War," goes so far as to state, "What is absolutely certain is that old Edmund Ruffin, full of fleas from sleeping in his uniform on the sand, did not fire the first shot of the Civil War as so many historians have claimed." A number of Confederate accounts place the "honor" upon Captain Geroge S. James, including an account in the Southern Historical Society papers. A book by Colonel Alfred Roman's, "The Military Operations of General Beauregard," states, "From Fort Johnson's mortar battery at 4:30 a.m. issued the first shot of the war. It was fired not by Mr. Ruffin from Virginia, as has been erroneously supposed, but by Captain George S. James of South Carolina."
Abner Doubleday, on the receiving end of those shots, wrote in his "Reminiscences of Forts Sumter and Moultre in 1860 - 1861," that "The mortar battery at Cummings Point opened fire on Fort Sumter in its turn, after the signal shell from Fort Johnson, having been preceded by mortar batteries on Sullivan's Island and and the mortar battery of the Marion Artillery..." Edmund Ruffin was with the Palmetto Guard at Cummings Point, and their firing was "preceded" by firing from other batteries, so, Doubleday's account would seem to indicate that it would not have been possible for Ruffin to have fired THE first shot. Maury Klein, in his "Days of Defiance," states "James claimed the honor for himself," (he offered the first shot to Roger Pryor who declined), " at 4:30 a.m. he sent a 10 inch mortar shell soaring over the harbor. It burst above the fort and announced to a sleeping nation that war had come." Boatner's "The Civil War Dictionary," entry for "Ruffin" states that "Sometimes credited with firing the first shot, although it would probably be more accurate to say that after Captain James had fired the signal gun, Ruffin fired the first shot from the Stevens Battery. Even that is questionable." "Who is Who in the Confederacy," by Stewart Sifakis allows Ruffin, "...to fire one of the first shots at Fort Sumter," but not specifically the first. "Who was Who in the Civil War," edited by Crescent Books, notes under "Ruffin," that "some sources erroneously state he fired the first shot."
It is worth noting that the 67 year old Ruffin's legendary ability with artillery continued after Sumter. At first Bull Run it was alleged that he fired the shot that blocked Cub Run bridge, commencing the Union rout. It may be more accurate, in future incarnations of the CWQ to amend the question to, "one of the first shots of the Civil War."
--From the ACW moderated newsgroup
I don't know if this James person was a slave holder or not.
But it is beyond hair splitting to say that the slave holders didn't open the war.
Walt
Is it? Cause all i'm trying to do is establish accuracy. You asserted that slave holders fired the first shot, and that is an assertion you cannot specifically document as the answer is not known. A similar question on the other end of the war is known to have an answer though. As to whether or not the conquering general who negotiated the southern surrender was practitioner of slavery, the answer is indisputably yes.
In other words, there is some question as to whether or not the firer of the first shot was a practitioner of slavery. But as to the man who recieved Lee's surrender, the answer is indisputably yes.