Look toward Fort Sumter, whether you can see it from the waterfront or are arriving by ferry, the man-made island in Charleston Harbor where the Civil War began. At 4:30 in the morning on April 12, 1861, Confederate shore batteries opened fire on the federal garrison commanded by Major Robert Anderson. The thirty-four-hour bombardment that followed was witnessed by thousands of Charlestonians who crowded the Battery and rooftops to watch.
Anderson surrendered on April 14. Remarkably, no one died in the bombardment itself, though a soldier was killed in an accidental explosion during the evacuation. The war that followed would kill between 620,000 and 750,000 Americans in four years.
Fort Sumter itself became a symbol — of Confederate defiance, of Union determination, of the stakes of the conflict over slavery that had been deferred since the founding. Confederate forces held the fort for nearly four years, even as Union naval and land forces reduced it to rubble through continuous bombardment. The Union raised its flag over the ruins on April 14, 1865 — four years to the day after the surrender — in a ceremony attended by formerly enslaved people from the surrounding area.
That same night, Abraham Lincoln was shot at Ford's Theatre. Fort Sumter is now a National Monument. To stand here is to stand at the pivot point of American history.