On this day, April 12, in 1861, 150 years ago, the greatest tragedy in American history began, with the South Carolina government ordering the state militia to commence an attack against the US military fort, Fort Sumter, lying on an island in Charleston Harbor!
620,000 men were killed in the war that ensued for four years minus three days! 360,000 Union soldiers and 260,000 Confederate soldiers lost their lives, and two percent of the population were wiped out, creating a young and middle age male shortage only overcome by immigration over the next two generations!
The South tried to say the war was fought over different civilizations clashing, and the fight for states rights, but the truth is that it was the institution of slavery and its expansion westward and northward which led to the war!
Today, we still hear Southerners and even Westerners threaten secession from the Union, but they well know that cannot be allowed to happen, as the Union won the war and settled the issue of states rights for all time, no matter what radicals say!
The Civil War remains the greatest crisis in American history, and scars still remain, as South Carolina is today celebrating, rather then commemorating, the Fort Sumter attack, as if it is something to be proud of!
But the regionalism that existed then still exists today and affects our politics in the 21st century!
More will be said about the Civil War as we continue to follow the events of that tragic conflict over the next four years!