What year did the American Civil War begin?

The American Civil War began in 1861, when Confederate forces opened fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina, on April 12. The attack followed months of political crisis after Southern states began seceding from the Union.

Abraham Lincoln’s election in November 1860 intensified the conflict. Southern leaders feared that opposition to slavery’s expansion would eventually threaten the institution itself. Seven slave states seceded before the fighting began and formed the Confederate States of America; four more joined after Fort Sumter.

The war lasted more than four years, ending with Union victory in 1865, the collapse of the Confederacy, and the abolition of slavery. A common mix-up is treating the 1860 election or the first secession as the war’s start. Those events helped trigger the crisis, but the conventional military starting point is the bombardment of Fort Sumter in April 1861.