Video: Civil War Journal - Destiny at Fort Sumter

Summary:

Off the coast of South Carolina, in Charleston Harbor, the first shots of the Civil War took place. Fort Sumter, both a geographical and ideological battleground for both the Union and the Confederacy, provided the stage for the first act of the country’s greatest drama.

• aberration
• assail
• compromise
• conservative
• destiny
• exaltation
• garrison
• impregnate
• irresolute
• mandate
• precept
• rabid
• sovereignty
• staunch
• vacillate
• vile

1. What is destiny? Why was the start of the Civil War Fort Sumter’s destiny? What do you think is your destiny? Can you change destiny?

2. The confrontation at Fort Sumter has been called “brilliant and bloodless, a gentlemen’s war.” Why? How would the future battles of the Civil War differ?

3. Why do the roots of the Civil War lie in another war, the American Revolution?

4. Although most southerners did not own slaves, slavery still caused the Civil War. How and why did slavery cause the conflict between the northern and southern states?

5. Compare the economic systems of the North and the South.

6. Discuss the political implications of slavery from the American Revolution to the Civil War.

7. Why did Abraham Lincoln’s election provide the final catalyst for the split between the North and the South?

8. Why was the battle at Fort Sumter a symbolic one?

9. Why was it so important for the North to hold Fort Sumter? Why did they fail?

1. Imagine that you are a federal soldier at Fort Sumter on that fateful night in 1861. Write a diary entry recounting the events of the night.

2. Divide the class into two sections, one representing the North, the other the South and moderate a debate on succession.