Fort Sumter

Fort Sumter, fort in Charleston Harbor, S.C., where the first shots in the Civil War were fired on Apr. 12, 1861. When South Carolina seceded from the Union (1860), U.S. Major Robert Anderson received a rebel summons to surrender his garrison. He refused, Sumter was fired upon, and the war began. The fort was retaken when Confederates evacuated Charleston in Feb. 1865.