The Beginning of the US Civil War

The US Civil War(1861-1865), is often known as the war that freed the american slaves in the south of the US. This was true in a way, but there were other reasons other than freeing the slaves that caused the Civil War. This Civil War was probably the most bloody war that the US fought, even more so than World War 2. In this essay I will be writing about the beginning of the US Civil War.

The US States

When the Civil War began there were a total of fifteen slave states and nineteen non-slave states. The way that these states choose sides was roughly outlined by the Missouri Compromise line. The first states to secede or leave the US Union, were seven states from the deep south of the US, this occured before April 15th, 1861.

Four more States seceded after the battle of Fort Sumter, which brought the Confederate states(the states that were pro slavery),to a total of eleven states. There were four other US states that permitted slavery, but did not secede from the union.

The first seven seceded states created “The Confederate States of America” or the “C.S.A. The C.S.A was not identified as a separate country from the US, but it did have a provisional government and a president. The President of the C.S.A began creating an army of thousands of men.

The Battle of Fort Sumter

Fort Sumter, was an unfinished Union fort, in Charleston, South Carolina. Though it was unfinished it was a pretty strong defense wise. In late 1860, a US Major, Robert Anderson, secretly abandoned the fort that he was originally stationed at(Fort Moultrie), and moved to Fort Sumter.

South Carolina was one of the states that had seceded from the Union, so the US army was not welcome at that time. Anderson did this, to prevent an attack from the Confederates. The Governor of South Carolina found out about this and sent a letter to the US President, Buchanan, on January 1861. This letter requested that Anderson and his men must evacuate from the fort.

The request for evacuation was repeated multiple times before April, until the Confederates blocked access to supplies for the fort. Anderson and his men were running very low on supplies, so Lincoln the president at the time, sent a fleet to Anderson’s aid. When the soldiers did not evacuate from Fort Sumter, Charleston harbor began shooting artillery from the other forts, at the small fort for thirty four hours.

The soldiers of Fort Sumter fired back with artillery also, but very weakly. Around three thousand artillery shells were fired before the Union soldiers decided to evacuate. Though this “battle” had no casualties, except for an accidental death during the departure ceremony, it still caused an impact, and is known as the first battle of the US Civil War.