Following South Carolina's declaration of secession on December 20, 1860, state authorities demanded that the U.S. Army abandon its facilities in Charleston Harbor. On December 26, Major Robert Anderson of the U.S. Army moved his command from the vulnerable Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter, a substantial fortress built on an island controlling the entrance to Charleston Harbor. An attempt by President James Buchanan to reinforce and resupply Anderson using the unarmed merchant ship Star of the West failed on January 9, 1861, when it was fired upon by shore batteries. The ship was hit three times, which prevented supplies from reaching Anderson. During the early months of 1861, the situation around Fort Sumter increasingly resembled a siege.
On April 12–13, 1861, the South Carolina militia bombarded Fort Sumter near Charleston, South Carolina. Major Robert Anderson commanded the U.S. Army forces at the fort. Brigadier General P. G. T. Beauregard served as a commander during the Confederate operations. The bombardment proceeded over these two days as Confederate forces attacked the fortified position.
The battle ended with the surrender of Fort Sumter by the United States Army. This engagement marked the beginning of the American Civil War. The fall of Fort Sumter represented a significant moment in the escalation of hostilities between the North and South, transforming the sectional crisis into open military conflict.
The American Civil War (1861–1865) was the deadliest conflict in American history, killing an estimated 620,000 to 750,000 soldiers and an unknown number of civilians. The Confederate States of America, formed by eleven seceding Southern states, faced the Union in four years of warfare across 23 states and territories. Major engagements included First and Second Bull Run, Antietam (the bloodiest single day in American history, September 17, 1862), Chancellorsville, Gettysburg (July 1–3, 1863), Vicksburg (surrendered July 4, 1863), and Sherman's March through Georgia and the Carolinas (1864–1865). President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, transforming the war's stated purpose to include the abolition of slavery and enabling the enlistment of approximately 180,000 Black men in the United States Colored Troops. Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. The war resolved the question of secession and ended American slavery, though Reconstruction would face sustained resistance in its attempt to secure civil rights for formerly enslaved people.
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