April 12, 1861

[Linda_D]

On this date 150 years ago, Confederate forces under Pierre Beauregard fired on Ft Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina, harbor. This was the beginning of the bloodiest war in American history, the Civil War.

• More Americans died in this war than in all the other wars the US has fought combined.
• More soldiers died of disease than on the battlefields.
• The Civil War is often called the "first modern war" because ...
  
  • trench warfare around Atlanta, GA and Petersburg, VA foreshadowed WW I
  • the development of military technology including the repeating rifle/carbine, the machine gun (Gatlin gun), iron-clad ships, extensive use of railroads for supply and troop transport, etc
  • the employment of military drafts on both sides
  • making war on civilian populations to demoralize them and to prevent them from supplying the enemy which became SOP in future wars
  • the creation of medical/hospital system to care for the thousands of wounded
• The economy of the South was wrecked while the economy of the North and Midwest prospered because of rapid industrialization brought on by the war.
• Slavery was ended but the issues of race, equality, and opportunity remained unresolved throughout the country.
• The concept of the US changed from a collection of states into one of a single nation.

[nogods]

The first soldier to die in the war died from an accidental discharge of a cannon.

The Civil War's First Death Was An Accident