And force it becomes on April 12, 1861, when the Confederates open fire on the Fort Sumter, a Union garrison, situated at the entrance to Charleston harbor. After a two day siege, General Robert Anderson surrenders the fort. Despite this, the US Congress delays a formal declaration of war until July 26, 1861, five days after its army is routed at First Bull Run. The declaration calls for a war “to restore the Union.”
One nation has now become two.
Photography Book
And both sides begin a Civil War that will last for the next four years and claim some 750,000 lives (some 2.5% of the entire population) in addition to threatening the principles underlying America’s experiment in democracy.
Harper Cartoon Attacking Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
On March 4, 1861, Lincoln’s address to the nation is a plea on behalf of saving the Union. “We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.” But this call upon “the better angels of our nature” to avoid secession fails to move the South – and when Virginia votes for dissolution, Lincoln reluctantly decides that force, rather than rhetoric, may be needed in the end.
Throughout the conflict, Abraham Lincoln will stand tall in his dedication to restoring the Union and putting an end to the slave question which has divided the country from its inception.