CANTON -- Ft. Sumter, the site of the opening battle of the Civil War, is the topic at the next Civil War Roundtable on Tuesday, April 12 at 7 p.m. at the St. Lawrence County Historical Association at the Silas Wright House, 3 East Main St.

Robert Wells, former St. Lawrence University professor and former mayor of Canton, will lead the discussion.

The result of this battle was the surrender of the fort to the Confederate Army, as well as a call from many residents of both the north and south for more military action. Thus began the bloody Civil War.

Wells will lead a discussion of whether or not President Lincoln did the right thing in not immediately surrendering the fort to the Confederates. Ft. Sumter, which controlled the entrance to Charleston Harbor, was the position that U.S. Major Robert Anderson moved his men to in December 1860, as it was the most defensible Federal position in the Charleston area. South Carolina had by this time already seceded from the Union. South Carolina authorities seized all Federal property in the area, except Ft. Sumter, in January 1861.

Resupplying Ft. Sumter was just one crisis that Abraham Lincoln had to address after he took the Presidential oath of office on March 4, 1861.

Note that this Civil War Roundtable is not at the usual Sunday afternoon time.

More info: 386-8133 or info@slcha.org.

Pictured is the bombardment of Ft. Sumter.  (Bombardment of Fort Sumter, Charleston Harbor: 12th & 13th of April, 1861; possibly created in 1861; published by Currier & Ives.