On 12 Apr 1861, the bloodiest 4 years in American history began when Confederate shore batteries under General Beauregard opened fire on Union-held Fort Sumter in South Carolina’s Charleston Bay. During the next 34 hours, 50 Confederate guns and mortars launched more than 4,000 rounds at the poorly supplied fort. The next day US Major Robert Anderson surrendered the fort. Two days later, President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation calling for 75,000 volunteer soldiers to quell the Southern “insurrection.”
When Lincoln was inaugurated on March 4, 1861, a total of seven states seceded from the Union. Four years later, the Confederacy was defeated at the total cost of 620,000 Union and Confederate dead.
A lot of Northerners just plain hated Southerners and vice versa in those days. It’s getting to be that way again, but this time it’s liberals and conservatives. Let’s disagree on policy without hating each other. That can (did) lead to war.
