This Day in History: , The Civil War Begins.
April 12, 1861.
Union-held Fort Sumter in Charleston Bay, SC,
is attacked by Confederate shore batteries
under the command of General P.G.T. Beauregard.
After being battered
for 34 straight hours,
U.S. Major Robert Anderson
surrendered the fort.
U.S. President Abraham Lincoln
called for 75,000 volunteer
soldiers two days later.
He had been in office
for barely more than a month.
South Carolina, a slave state,
had issued an "Ordinance of Secession"
earlier in December, dissolving its ties with the Union.
The following four years of war between
the North and South would be the bloodiest
in American history, resulting in the deaths
of more than 620,000 Confederate and Union soldiers
Credit: Wibbitz Top Stories Duration: 00:58Published
This Day in History:, President Andrew
Johnson Is Impeached.
February 24, 1868.
Johnson assumed the
presidency after Lincoln's assassination.
He became the first U.S. president to be impeached.
11 articles of impeachment
were approved by the House of Representatives.
They arose from Johnson's
unpopular and racist post-Civil War
Reconstruction policies.
and the firing of Lincoln
appointed secretary of war,
Edwin Stanton.
Johnson's Senate impeachment
trial began on March 13.
He was not convicted, narrowly
escaping removal from office
Credit: Wibbitz Top Stories Duration: 00:53Published
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