View the Civil War 150th Anniversary page
By BRUCE SMITH
Associated Press
Reenactors fire mortars Tuesday at the Pitt Street Bridge near Fort Sumter, to commemorate moment the first shots of the Civil War were fired 150 years ago in Charleston, S.C.
(AP Photo/Alice Keeney)CHARLESTON, S.C. – Booming cannons, plaintive period music and hushed crowds ushered in the 150th anniversary of America’s bloodiest war on Tuesday, a commemoration that continues to underscore a racial divide that had plagued the nation since before the Civil War.
The events marked the 150th anniversary of the Confederate bombardment of Union-held Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, an engagement that plunged the nation into four years of war at a cost of more than 600,000 lives.