Troop engagements of the American Civil War, 1861 Troop engagements of the American Civil War, 1861 The following is a list of engagements that took place in 1861 during the American Civil War. The war started on April 12 when Confederate forces commanded by General P. G. T. Beauregard opened fire on the Union garrison of Fort Sumter in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina; after a thirty-four-hour bombardment, the Union garrison surrendered. There had been no casualties during the bombardment; but the following day while the Union garrison commander, Major Robert Anderson, was firing a fifty-gun salute, there was an explosion that resulted in one man being
Fort Sumter Flag magic. The flag was a widely known patriotic symbol for the North during the war. On April 14, 1865, four years to the day after the surrender and as part of a celebration of the Union victory, Anderson (by then a major general), raised the flag in triumph over the battered remains of the fort. The Rev. Henry Ward Beecher was the principal orator at the 1865 celebration, and gave a lengthy speech, as was the custom of the day. He said in conclusion: Later that night President Lincoln would be shot at Ford's Theatre. The Fort Sumter Flag is