In 1861, a long-growing tension in the United States finally reached a breaking point. It wasn’t a sudden explosion of violence; historical records show that the country had been moving toward this conflict for years, with many issues like slavery and whether it would be allowed to expand into new Western territories.
The official start of this war is marked by the attack on Fort Sumter in South Carolina. At 4:30 a.m. on April 12, 1861, Confederate troops opened fire on the fort, which was located in Charleston Harbor. The Union forces inside, led by Major Robert Anderson, were running low on supplies.
President Abraham Lincoln had previously attempted to send a ship with food to help the soldiers, but he purposely avoided sending weapons to prevent an immediate fight. Despite this, the Confederate forces attacked, and after 34 hours of bombardment, the Union surrendered the fort.
Months earlier, following Lincoln’s election in November 1860, several Southern senators began resigning to join the Confederacy. The U.S. Senate faced a crisis as more and more members were resigning. By the time the first shots were fired, 25 out of 66 senators had already left.
Some leaders sought peace through compromise, such as the Committee of Thirteen, but the divide eventually became too wide to bridge. Senator Stephen Douglas famously declared that there could be no neutrals in this war, as everyone had to choose a side.
The war changed daily life in many ways, including how people communicated. Before the war, the U.S. Post Office was an important link across the country, but once the conflict began, the Confederate States had to create their own postal system. They faced major challenges, like lack of paper and ink.. The mail became a tool for patriotic messages, and people began using envelopes printed with colorful images and slogans to show their support for either the North or the South.
The war that began at Fort Sumter lasted four years. By the time the Confederacy was defeated, the conflict had taken a terrible toll, leaving 620,000 Union and Confederate soldiers dead.
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