The First Shot, Fort Johnson

You are standing near the spot where the American Civil War began. At half past four on the morning of April twelfth, eighteen sixty-one, a ten inch mortar on this point of land, Fort Johnson, fired a single shell that arced high over Charleston Harbor and burst above Fort Sumter. By order of Captain George James, Lieutenant Henry Farley pulled the lanyard.

That shot was the agreed signal. Within minutes every Confederate battery ringing the harbor opened fire on the Federal garrison out on its man made island. The bombardment ran for some thirty four hours, more than three thousand shells, until Major Robert Anderson surrendered the fort.

No one died in the exchange itself, yet the war that followed would kill more Americans than any other war in the nation's history. The marker here was dedicated on the centennial, April twelfth, nineteen sixty-one.