Civil War: Can It Happen Here (Again)?

In the early morning hours of April 12, 1861, a single mortar was fired into the air at Charleston, South Carolina. The shell soared up into the sky, its trajectory visible because of a glowing red fuse. Then it arced down again and harmlessly exploded over Fort Sumter, a United States Army outpost in the middle of Charleston harbor. That the shell did not kill or maim any of the fort’s inhabitants was of no importance. This was simply a signal shot to communicate an order to the rebel batteries that for months had been training the fort in their gun sights. Within a very short time they were pouring fire into Fort Sumter, slowly breaking the facility apart as its commanding officer, Major Robert Anderson, huddled under cover with his troops.

Only at daybreak did Anderson start to return fire, but the situation was grim. He knew his ability to hold the fort was limited by circumstances. The fort itself was unfinished, and Anderson did not have enough artillery batteries of his own to counter the rebel attack. As it was, his manpower was actually so limited that he did not even have enough troops to properly man the guns that he did have. Even if the fort’s structure could withstand the barrage, even if his men could repel the Confederate amphibious assault that was expected, the fort could not hold out for long without outside assistance – his men only had a few days worth of food left. On April 13 he surrendered his fort and his men to the rebels.

So began the American Civil War. In a conflict full of ironies big and small, one of the most obvious that day had been the presence of the rebel commander in Charleston, General Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard, a West Point man who until recently had been an officer in the United States Army. Major Anderson was a West Point man too – in fact, he had once been an instructor of artillery there. Beauregard had once been one of his pupils – so skilled was he in fact, that Anderson had Beauregard stay on as his assistant for a time after he graduated.

The story of the American Civil War and how it began were once taught in every American school. Every schoolboy knew what happened at Fort Sumter.

I’m sure that the story of Fort Sumter is still taught in every American school – or at least, it’s still supposed to be. God only knows how many of our chronically overworked and underpaid public school teachers actually teach it now. Even if it is still being taught, it’s clearly not registering with American students, as study after study has found the average American citizen to be shockingly ignorant of their own history. The old adage has become so cliché that it pains me to repeat it here, but it has always been said that those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. I don’t necessarily agree with that statement. I would probably modify it by saying that those who forget history avoid repeating it only through good luck. And for the past one hundred and forty-some years, Americans have avoided making the same mistakes that led to the events at Fort Sumter, despite ups and downs and periods of internal unrest. And certainly it could never happen again. Right?

For me, this project has been a long time in development. I remember being eighteen years old and first realizing that I was seeing ominous storm clouds very distant on the horizon. It was early 2001 and George W. Bush was at the time ineffectually bumbling through his first months in the Oval Office. In the years that have passed since then I have seen those storm clouds grow darker. Sometimes they have appeared to recede, but never permanently. The clouds are now overhead. The storm is not yet ready to start, but a few raindrops have started to fall.

Civil War Watch is a one-man effort on my part. In the weeks and months that follow I will publish articles analyzing recent developments in our country and their potential implications. I will write speculative pieces on how the second American Civil War may start, how it could play out and how it could impact all of our lives. I will examine military developments here and abroad, trends in modern warfare (particularly guerilla war) and examine the history of the first Civil War, not to mention the civil wars of other nations that might offer parallels to our own developing situation.

I thank all my readers for their patronage of this blog and look forward to discussing these matters with you soon.