This year, much was made over the fact that April 12, 2011 was the 150th year anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War. It was on that date in 1861 that the Confederacy fired upon Fort Sumter, in Charleston Harbor. It is true that at the time, after the attack on Sumter, outrage and indignation fueled a desire and a call for war in the North, but calls for war does not make actual war, in which armies clash and soldiers die. No such action occurred for weeks after Fort Sumter, because it was physically impossible.
It is reasonable to argue that the Civil War did not and could not begin with Fort Sumter for two key reasons.
The first reason is that neither side had actual armies formed up and in position to fight at the time of the Fort Sumter attack. Abraham Lincoln, on April 15, had to put out a call for 75,000 soldiers to come forward and form an army because he had nothing with which to fight the South, and it would take weeks after that call for the first elements of the army to arrive at Washington. The South was in no better position and had to begin creating its own armies if it was to carry out its part in a war.
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