was where the Civil War began.

But why did the Civil War begin there?  What was so important about Fort Sumter?  Some people might say that Fort Sumter was important because it commanded Charleston harbor.  That is, it was located in a place where guns in the fort could destroy ships trying to enter or leave the harbor.  This meant that it was dangerous to the Confederacy.  However, this argument really does not hold up.  The fort had never been completed and had very few guns and not much ammunition.  It could not really threaten shipping very much.  More importantly, the fort had been designed decades before and was not strong enough to withstand modern artillery.  This meant that the CSA could easily destroy it whenever they wanted.  Therefore, Ft. Sumter was not militarily important in the condition it was in on April 12, 1861.

What was really important about Ft. Sumter was its symbolic value.  The fort was occupied by the Union right in the middle of the Confederacy’s main harbor.  This looked very bad for the CSA.  It made them look as if they did not even control the territory that they claimed to control.  This is why they needed to attack Ft. Sumter.  They needed to demonstrate to the European countries (and perhaps to their own people) that they were actually in control of the territory that they claimed.  It was for this reason that the CSA attacked Ft. Sumter and the Civil War began there. 

Fort Sumter is historically significant because it is the place where the first battle of the American Civil War was fought. The Fort was built to bolster the United States’ defenses in its southern ports. The situation in the south was made worse by Lincoln’s election in 1860. After South Carolina’s secession, plans were made to have Major Robert Anderson remain at Fort Moultrie. However, security issues forced Anderson to leave with his men and their families to Fort Sumter.

Anderson and his men faced considerable challenges in Fort Sumter mostly associated with insufficient supplies and hostility from Confederate forces. A relief expedition was organized to assist Anderson, but the Confederate government was determined to take over the Fort. Anderson and his men stood their ground and refused to surrender to the Confederates, forcing them to launch an attack on the Fort. Anderson and his men put up a fight but were eventually forced to surrender due to failure in getting relief from the Union, nonetheless, the Civil War had started.

The battle of Fort Sumter was important because it began the Civil War in the United States. Fort Sumter was a United States Army installation located in the middle of Charleston Harbor in South Carolina. When South Carolina seceded, or left the Union, US troops stayed in the fort, though they vacated other forts in the area. President Abraham Lincoln, who took office in March, was unwilling to allow the Confederacy to take possession of the fort, yet sending additional troops would be viewed as an act of war. For his part, Confederate president Jefferson Davis was unwilling to allow the troops to remain, yet was fearful of firing the first shot, lest the Confederacy been seen as the aggressor. When Lincoln sent additional supplies to the fort, the decision was finally made to bombard it. On April 12, 1861, Confederate artillery opened fire on the fort, and after a lengthy bombardment, the garrison inside surrendered. Thus began the Civil War. So the shots on Fort Sumter were the first of the bloodiest conflict in American history.

Fort Sumter, located at the entrance to Charleston Harbor, was the site of the beginning of the Civil War. When the Lower South states, including South Carolina, seceded from the Union, the problem of what to do with federal military installations in the new Confederate States of America became of paramount importance. Many of the forts were simply abandoned, but newly inaugurated president Abraham Lincoln drew a line at Fort Sumter, and instructed the garrison there, commanded by Major Robert Anderson, not to evacuate.

Secessionists realized that they could not be taken seriously if the fort in the middle of Charleston Harbor was allowed to remain in federal hands, and they surrounded the harbor with batteries of artillery. Lincoln, realizing that reinforcing the fort with troops would be interpreted as an act of war, decided instead to send supplies. The crisis came to a head at 4:30 am on April 12, 1861. The batteries opened fire on the fort, which surrendered after a 34-hour bombardment.

President Lincoln responded to the attack by calling for 75,000 volunteers to put down the rebellion, and this act resulted in the states in the Upper South (Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina) leaving the Union to cast their lots with the Confederacy. It also inaugurated the war, which after an almost bloodless beginning (the only Federal casualty was killed by an explosion after the battle was over) but would go on to become the most costly in American history.