On the twelfth of April, 1861, Confederate guns opened fire on Fort
Sumter in Charleston Harbor, thus beginning the bloodiest conflict in
American History--620, 000 dead---more than all other American wars
Combined.
The Civil War remains this nation's single most defining experience,
Ultimately giving new meaning to the word Freedom.
Walt Whitman, a young newspaperman destined to become America's
Greatest poet wrote: "Future years will never know the seething hell
And the black infernal background of this war -- and it is best they
Should not -- the real war will never get in the books. "
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