Battle of Fort Sumter leaves akin to bursting shells. The state tree of South Carolina, the palmettos suggest the geopolitical area opening Civil War hostilities. This stamp was produced by an engraving and printed by the rotary process in panes of fifty stamps each. The Postal Department authorized an initial printing of 120 million stamps. Online resources Battle of Fort Sumter The Battle of Fort Sumter (April 12–13, 1861) was the bombardment of Fort Sumter near Charleston, South Carolina by the Confederate States Army, and the return gunfire and subsequent surrender by the United States Army, that started the American Civil War. Following the
Battle of Gloucester Point (1861) surrendered Fort Sumter to the Confederates and as the earliest reported Civil War military engagement in Virginia. Like other early engagements between Union gunboats and Confederate shore batteries, the battle at Gloucester Point was part of the Union Navy effort to blockade the Southern States in general and the Chesapeake Bay in particular. The engagement also was part of the effort by Confederate forces to deny the use of rivers in Virginia to Union military and commercial traffic. On April 15, 1861, the day after the U.S. Army garrison surrendered Fort Sumter to Confederate forces, President Abraham Lincoln called for