Prompts winter weather advisories as cold air moves in Friday night

MPR News helps you turn down the noise and build shared understanding. Turn up your support for this public resource and keep trusted journalism accessible to all. 

Turn Up Your Support

FORT SUMTER NATIONAL MONUMENT, S.C. (AP) - Somber period music,
flickering candlelight and booming cannons will usher in the
nation's observance of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War.


      The opening salvo of that war that began in Charleston Harbor
will be recreated Tuesday. The war began before dawn on April 12,
1861, with the start of a Confederate bombardment of Union-held
Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. The conflict ended four years
later with the surrender of Confederate forces in Virginia on April
9, 1865.


      "We're very clear we don't see this as a celebration but rather
as a somber time," Tim Stone, the superintendent of the Fort
Sumter National Monument said Monday. "We know that over the
course of the four years of the Civil War 600,000 lives were lost.
It's a very tragic event."


      Tuesday's commemoration of the first shots was set to begin with
a brief, predawn concert of period music on Charleston's Battery
entitled "When Jesus Wept." Then a star shell will explode over
the fort, signaling the start for several hundred reenactors --
manning cannon around the harbor -- to reenact the bombardment.
Union troops in the fort surrendered after more than 30 punishing
hours of Confederate fire.


      Reenactors portraying Confederate units are camping at Fort
Moultrie on Sullivans Island, while Union reenactors are in Sumter
this week. They plan to recreate the Union surrender to Confederate
troops on Thursday.


      Historian Rick Hatcher said the bombardment didn't cause any
deaths, but two Union soldiers died of wounds suffered when a
salute was fired during the surrender ceremony.


      Stone said the National Park Service sees the anniversary as an
opportunity for new generations to learn the story of the bloody
conflict.


      "We hope that in the National Park Service that manages many of
the great Civil War sites -- Gettysburg, Chickamauga, Chattanooga,
Antietam and, of course, Fort Sumter -- we provide the visiting
public the opportunity to experience the history of those events. We try to focus on the history and let the visitors take away the
message they want."


      The events this week include living history demonstrations
focusing on the role of blacks and women during the war. There will
be sessions on period music, medicine and cooking of the era.


      What is being planned is different than the festival atmosphere
that seemed to surround the Civil War centennial 50 years ago, said
park service ranger Michael Allen.


      "When we began this journey we made clear it was not a
celebration; it was a remembrance, a commemoration," he said,
adding the Park Service rejected suggestions such as organizing a
fireworks display over the harbor.


      "The Park Service realized this is a sensitive journey," Allen
noted. "The eyes of the ... state, the eyes of the nation and the
eyes of the world are on what we are doing here."


      More than 200 miles away in his native Greenville, civil rights
leader the Rev. Jesse Jackson spoke Monday to high school students
about the lingering effects of the Civil War and slavery. He said
that, despite slaves being freed as a result of the war, it was
another century before blacks attained equal rights.


      But Jackson sees progress even in his home state, where public
schools were not integrated until the early 1970s -- nearly two
decades after the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Brown v. Board of
Education.


      "It's good to see children -- black and white, brown and Asian -- learning together," Jackson said following his visit Monday to
Greenville's Southside High School. "That's part of the face of
the new South."


      One of the events being held this week in Charleston in
conjunction with the anniversary is a talk on the war and slavery
Tuesday by leaders at the state and local level of the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People.


      Stone, meanwhile, said he was pleased and relieved that Congress
reached an agreement to keep the federal government running so two
years of planning weren't derailed.


      Reenactors said they were thrilled a federal shutdown had been
averted on the eve of the milestone anniversary.


      "There was jubilation. That's the best way to describe it,"
said Mark Silas Tackitt of Seattle, who this week is reenacting
the role of Maj. Robert Anderson, the Union commander of Sumter at
the time of the bombardment.


      "I came 3,000 miles and worked on this for two years. People
who have come here have come many, many hours," he said.


      He said when other reenactors asked him what they should do
when events seemed to be in doubt, he told them "if you
stay home, you're going to miss a once in a lifetime opportunity."


      Associated Press writer Page Ivey in Columbia, S.C., contributed
to this report.

Gallery

The story behind the Emancipation Proclamation

Nat'l Parks face federal shutdown on Civil War eve

Arts and Culture

History

The war began before dawn on April 12,
1861, with the start of a Confederate bombardment of Union-held
Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. The conflict ended four years
later with the surrender of Confederate forces in Virginia on April
9, 1865.

The 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War will be a somber occasion

Go Deeper.

Like this?