ON THIS DAY ·
Battle of Fort Sumter
12–14 Apr 1861 — Fort Sumter surrenders after 34 hours of bombardment. The only men killed die during an accidental salute. The battle costs remarkably few lives, yet it opens the costliest war in American history.
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The moment in context
The four months between election and inauguration gave secessionists time to act before Lincoln could exercise presidential power. Buchanan regarded secession as illegal, but he also held that the federal government could not lawfully prevent it by force. While Washington remained caught between those positions, seven Deep South states left the Union, seized federal forts and arsenals, and established a government at Montgomery. Its constitution guaranteed slavery. Lincoln, meanwhile, rejected the Crittenden compromise: it would have permitted slavery’s expansion, the issue his election had settled. By March he faced an organized Confederacy, not simply a threat to create one.
From Secession crisis and Fort Sumter, chapter 3 of The American Civil War, 1840–1877 (APR 1861).
The place: Battle of Fort Sumter — map and full story →
Teach this in 5 minutes
- Why it happened — A four-month vacuum of power. Before Lincoln’s March inauguration, Buchanan faced states claiming to have left the Union. He considered their action illegal, but denied that…
- The turn — Fort Sumter, 12–14 April 1861. Confederate guns bombarded Sumter for about 34 hours on 12–14 April 1861. No one died in combat, but the firing settled a question that rival…
- What it changed — The upper South flips — and doubles the war. Virginia’s entry gave the Confederacy Robert E. Lee and the Tredegar Iron Works, the South’s only great foundry. It also brought the Confederate…
Then ask the room: Many advisers urged Lincoln to evacuate Sumter and gain time. Was his decision to provision it a mistake? The argued answer is on the chapter page →
The atlas that shows it
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