The Bert and Peggy Dupont lecture: prelude to war, a gentlemen's affair: the story behind the Battle of Fort Sumter, April 1861.

This evening, I will suggest some rethinking of a common belief that South Carolina impetuously fired on Fort Sumter and began the War against Southern Independence, usually called by a less accurate name. I asked your president, Dr Phil Mackowiak, if that approach might be too provocative. He replied, “No, that would be a welcome break from medicine and science.” We are after all, he said, in Charleston. An appropriate history of what happened between North and South before December 1860 explains the cause of secession of seven states. The Battle of Fort Sumter occurred on April 12th and 13th, 1861. The Regular Army of the United States of America at the time consisted of only some 16,000 officers and soldiers. Two days after the battle, newly inaugurated President Lincoln called up 75,000 militia men, and that has been called the start of the war. It was the immediate cause of the secession of four more states, Virginia 2 days after Lincoln’s call up of the 75,000 troops, then Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee. Intent counts for much in the prelude to a war. The South aimed no threat at the North. The Confederate States of America wanted only an uncontested divorce. The property settlement was minimal: two forts lying offshore, Fort Pickens in Pensacola Harbor and Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor (1). On May 3, 1861, President Lincoln again, not the US Congress, called up 42,000 additional volunteers and increased the size of the regular US Army by almost 23,000 soldiers. In July 1861, the US Congress sanctioned Lincoln’s acts and authorized 500,000 additional volunteers. Yielding or compromising on the troublesome issue of Fort Sumter and four formerly Federal installations around Charleston Harbor, all manned by only 90 men, would have prevented the loss of 620,000 lives during the ensuing war and the unwarranted burning of cities, towns, and villages in Georgia and South Carolina. The Southern states, long displeased about what they considered unacceptable and growing national political power arranged specifically