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A Most Extraordinary Month: April in the Civil War, Part I

© Perry Cuskey

Perhaps no other month on the calendar witnessed as large a number of important and fascinating events during the American Civil War as did the month of April. During its five wartime occurrences, this single month witnessed both the beginning and the effective end of the war itself, the first battle in American history on a truly epic scale, a famous train chase, the first federal action against the institution of slavery, the first national military draft in American history, the capture of the South's second largest city, a bread riot, the fall of a national capital, the assassination of one president and the flight from possible capture of another, a much-debated massacre, the surrender of two major armies, and more.

While virtually every month on the calendar witnessed important events during the war, it may be that April holds the title for witnessing the most. Below is a year-by-year overview of some of the events that occurred during this extraordinarily crowded month.

1861

While events leading to the war had been building for a considerable time prior to 1861, everything finally came to a head in April of that year. Once the shooting actually began, all questions of who was right, who was wrong, and what caused it all quickly faded into the background. North and South, the focus shifted with incredible speed to winning what most people in both sections expected to be a short, glorious, and of course victorious war.

Fort Sumter - The American Civil War quite literally began with a bang. At 4:30 in the morning of April 12th, 1861, a solitary shell rocketed its way toward Union-held Fort Sumter, located in the middle of the deceptively peaceful harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. The shell exploded directly above the fort, triggering a sudden barrage of cannon fire from the numerous Confederate batteries ringing the harbor. The age-old shouting war between North and South was now officially a shooting war.

While many citizens in Charleston quickly gathered along the shoreline and on rooftops around the harbor, cheering every shot aimed at Fort Sumter, not all of them were happy with the turn that events had now taken. For at least one person in this hotbed of southern secession, the thunderous noise suddenly coming from the harbor was cause for alarm rather than joy. "I sprang out of bed," wrote southern diarist Mary Chestnut, "and on my knees, prostrate, I prayed as I have never prayed before."

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