The Civil was a divisive turning point in American history. At the crux of this battle that turned a nation against itself, armed brother against brother was the issue of slavery. So contentious was the matter, the Southern Confederacy was willing to ‘split’ from the Union and on December 20, 1860, after the November election, where antislavery candidate Abraham Lincoln won the Presidency of the United States, South Carolina did just that. It was the first state to formally and openly declare secession. The precipitating acts at South Carolina’s Fort Sumter, led to the United States’ deadliest war.The whole story can be found at http://markerhunter.wordpress.com/2011/06/29/castle-pinckney-preservation/

Fort Sumter, named after General Thomas Sumter, a war hero of the Revolutionary War was built after the War of 1812 and was still under construction when the first shots were fired in 1861. It was third system, coast fortification located in the Charleston Harbor of South Carolina.

After President Lincoln’s inauguration, southern states the followed South Carolina’s lead and seceded began seizing federal forts that were in their vicinity and Lincoln countered by saying the he would use force “to hold, occupy, and posess the property and places belonging to the federal government.” South Carolina’s now a government unto themselves could not lose face by surrendering Fort Sumter to Lincoln. In April of 1961, Lincoln advised South Carolinian that the warships dispatched to the fort would only carry supplies.

The confederacy thought to stop the relief effort before it arrived under the notion, that now as an independent government, no “foreign” powers would occupy its coasts. Former U.S. Senator, Colonel James Chestnut and two other officers were dispatched by General Beauregard to give an ultimatum to Union soldiers on April 12, 1861 that Fort Sumter was to be surrendered but Union officer Robert Anderson refused and what ensued was a succession of shots by Confederate soldiers on the fort. It was regarded as an act of war and what came to be known later as the Civil War erupted.