The American Civil War (Part One of Two).
4/5/202658 min
The American Civil War started with a single, explosive question: could a nation built on slavery survive without it? Several Southern states chose to protect the institution that underpinned their economy and social order, at any cost. But when that necessitated their leaving the Union, the conflict that followed did not unfold along a single front. It tore across the continent, from dusty towns in the far West to river ports along the Mississippi, and from quiet New England villages to the cotton fields of the Deep South. Millions were drawn into it, and hundreds of thousands would die.<...
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First 90 secondsJohn Hopkins· Host0:03
It's the early hours of April the twelfth, eighteen sixty-one, and all is quiet in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. Under a moonless sky, the ramparts of Fort Sumter rise like a tooth in the middle of the bay's black water. Inside the fort, a Union officer walks the parapets with slow, deliberate steps, the grit of broken brick crunching beneath his boots. Lantern light wavers along the gun embrasures, catching the dull curves of cannons that have not been fired in months. Across the water, he can make out the faint glow of Confederate signal lamps flashing between Morris Island and Fort Johnson in small, sharp pulses in the dark. The officer knows what they mean. Positions have been checked, fuses primed, orders confirmed. He also knows that the final ultimatum hour has already come and gone, meaning negotiation has failed. Now, with food inside the fort almost depleted and the harbor too closely ringed to escape, all that remains is the wait and the knowledge that if a single shot is fired, the division may split the country clean in two.