SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: There were no thoughts of war or future enemies while Fort Sumter was being built. The plantations near Charleston had began to plant new crops like rice and cotton.
With the help of slave labor, cotton became extremely important to the economy of Charleston and much of the South. Many people in the northern United States began to think that slavery was very wrong, however.
Slave owners in the South wanted things to remain as they had always been. They believed the federal government had no right to tell them what they could or could not do.
STEVE EMBER: A national crisis began when Abraham Lincoln was elected president in eighteen sixty. The people of South Carolina believed he would try to end slavery by force. They voted to leave the United States. They were quickly followed by other southern states. These southern states soon created the government of the Confederate States of America.
Federal troops controlled Fort Sumter when South Carolina voted to leave the Union. The people of Charleston demanded the federal troops leave. The Union commander refused.
On April 12, 1861, a cannon fired at Fort Sumter was the first shot of the Civil War
On the morning of April twelfth, eighteen sixty-one, a cannon was fired at Fort Sumter. It was the first shot of America's long Civil War.
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SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: Charleston suffered a lot of damage during the Civil War. Several major battles were fought there. Late in the war another battle for control of Fort Sumter continued for almost two years. Much of Charleston had been destroyed by the time the war ended. Rebuilding the city was a long and slow process.
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