Fort Sumter attacked!

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At 4:27 A.M. on April 12, 1861 five Confederate artillery batteries opened fire on Fort Sumter, situated at the entrance to the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. This was the opening engagement of the American Civil War, the bloodiest conflict in our history. Although Fort Sumter held no strategic value to the North—it was unfinished and its guns faced the sea rather than Confederate shore batteries—it held enormous value as a symbol of the Union.