A federal garrison, led by Major Robert Anderson, had remained at Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor since December 26, 1860. As such, it served as an important
symbolic presence, one well out of proportion to its actual strategic importance. Immediately after the inaugural, Lincoln recevied word that the garrison would need
to be resupplied within a few weeks, and that presented the new President with a difficult dilemma. Republican hawks demanded that the fort be resupplied; the
moderates, led by William Seward, Lincoln's Secretary of State, urged him to evacuate the fort, in the hopes of reaching a peace settlement.

Ultimately, Lincoln decided to resupply the fort, but in unarmed ships. He would send only provisions; troops and warships would only enter the harbor if the first
ships were fired upon. Furthermore, Lincoln notified the Confederates of his plan, so that they would be fully informed should they choose to attack "a mission of
humanity."

The Confederates took the bait, and opened fire on the fort on April 12, at 4:30 am. Fire-eater and longtime Southern nationalist Edmund Ruffin of Virginia was
given the honor of firing the first shot. Thirty-four hours later, on April 14, the Union forces surrendered, and the Confederate "Stars and Bars" flew above the fort.
The American Civil War had begun.

On April 15, Lincoln issued a proclamation calling 75,000 state militiamen into federal service for ninety days, in order to put down the insurrection. In the North, his
call was answered eagerly, and a fever of excitement swept through the people. Nearly every Northern state sent more than its quota of men. The remaining slave
states were placed in a more difficult position as will be seen below.

Secession of the Upper South

The actions that transpired at Fort Sumter would directly affect the way in which the secession crisis would play out in the years of 1860-1861.  The eight slave states remaining in the Union (Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, Missouri, Kentucky, and Arkansas) were generally horrified by Lincoln's request that they take up arms against their "Southern brethren." All but Maryland and Delaware rejected Lincoln's request. Most of the people in these border states had been conditional Unionists, and this was simply too much for them to accept. On April 15, the Confederate flag was riased in Richmond to great acclaim, and on April 17, the Virginia convention voted to seced, 88 to 55. This represented a complete reversal of an earlier vote to stay in the Union, which had passed by an almost identical margin. A few days after that, they offered Richmond as the new site of the Confederate capital. Arkansas's convention voted 69 to 1 to secede on May 6; the vote in North Carolina on May 20 was unanimous. Tennessee's ciitizens had rejected the calling a convention in February, but in a state-wide referendum on June 8, the ordinance of secession passed by a two-to-one margin.
 

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