Tomorrow marks the 150th Anniversary of the start of the American Civil War. The first shots were fired at Fort Sumter, which is just out in the waters off Charleston, South Carolina’s shores. It is a pretty dang big deal in these parts….. this “Observance” of these events. People have come from all over the world for this.
In remembrance of the “Official” commencement, there is a ceremony tomorrow morning, down at the Battery, beginning at 4:30 a.m. That’s right down the street a couple of blocks from here.
South Carolina was the first state to secede. People in these parts have lots of stories. Some of our “neighbors” have cannon balls and the like, still lodged in their attics from this war that occurred a century and a half ago. For real.
But here is the deal. About 620,000 Americans died in the Civil War. Cities were destroyed. Charleston was one, of many, that suffered heavily.
Tonight we went to a lecture on the causes of the war. If I will remember ONE thing from the speakers tonight, it is this…..
“We act based on our experiences……. That is why history is important.”
If only we could learn the right lessons.
History got the firing on Fort Sumter all wrong. News traveled much slower back then and the patriotic City Of Charleston had waited until the much fairer weather of April arrived to celebrate Lincoln being elected President.
The local Charleston Development Board had recently been formed by the city Chamber. Anyhow, to make long story short a committee came up with the idea of a fireworks display as an annual tourism promotion. It being short notice the community was plum out of regular fireworks. The community had to do something as their first “Spring Break in Charleston” had drawn young people from hundreds of mile away. Someone now forgotten to history mentioned that they had plenty of cannon balls and a display over the water would get the kids all fired up down on the beach and help the local bars and restaurants. This made sense to the local residents who really didn’t want sparks from fireworks dropping on their roofs during what had been a hot dry April.
Honest injun, no one remembered or even thought about the fort full of Yankee aggressors out in the water.
Lincoln’s initial reaction to the episode was to let it slide as a community event gone wrong but asked Hannibal Hamlin to report on it. Hannibal bless his soul turned in a report saying that at the time Charleston had whole masses of drunk college students and little choice but to carry out a fireworks display as advertised. But Hannibal got sick and passed the report to Simon Cameron who being in the War Department had an unfortunate tendency to break phrases down and told Lincoln South Carolina had WMD.
Things went downhill from there.
Honest injun.:)
Jeff,
You are hilarious!!! Did you write this? SO dang funny, I love it…..
Hope you are well.
P.S. The Spring Breakers seem to be out again here… in full force…. still wearing the same outfits they did back then…. they’ve got cannon balls too!!!!
Well Polly I knew you were a history buff and would want to set the story straight for the locals who have been repeating it wrong all these years.
Tell them you heard it on Fox News and if you could do it without the monkey hat…