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The Battle of Fort Sumter (April 12 – 13, 1861), which was militarily minor, began the American Civil War.
Prelude
Main article: Causes of the American Civil War
President James Buchanan, a popular Southern Democrat, was somewhat sympathetic to the Southern states. However, he declined to run for a second term in 1860, causing the Democrats to nominate another candidate. The Southerners, in a possibly fatal mistake, split from the party, nominating former Vice President John C. Breckinridge as their candidate. However, during the 1860 Presidential Election, Abraham Lincoln was elected by a majority of the voters. Most Southerners believed that he would suppress the South and destroy their core beliefs.
Lincoln's election caused many Southern states, led by South Carolina, to secede, causing much tension in the Southern states. However, a few Union strongholds remained in the South, including Fort Monroe (near Norfolk, Virginia), and Fort Sumter (near Charleston, South Carolina).
Action
The 1st US Artillery, commanded by Major Robert Anderson, had been holed up in Fort Sumter for weeks, with little hope of being reinforced. President Lincoln had attempted to send relief ships, which had been fired upon and/or turned back (including the latest ship, U.S.S. Star of the West). After repeated letters asking the Union garrison to surrender (after they had been forced out of the less defensible Fort Moultrie), Brigadier General P.G.T. Beauregard (South Carolina Militia) opened fire on the fort with his artillery. After about a day of bombardment, the Union garrison, which was overwhelmed, decided to surrender. They were safely transported back to Union territory, a decision made by Gen. Beauregard, with the only casualties occurring during a salute to the flag by a volley of artillery, when a cannon misfired.
Aftermath
This caused a formal declaration of war by the Union toward the Confederate States of America. The ensuing war would last for four years, ending in April 1865, with the surrender of General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. However, the local and short-term aftermath was that the city of Charleston was completely in Confederate hands.
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