Answer: it represented the final chance for a lasting reconciliation between Union and Confederate forces on Southern soil
Explanation:
Fort Sumter guarded the harbor at Charleston, South Carolina, and was commanded by the Unionist Major Robert Anderson. Secessionists forces demanded total withdrawal of federal forces from the fort. Lincoln understood that giving up on Fort Sumter would be giving up the Union. He ordered the resupply of the Fort, but President Jefferson Davis and his Confederates decided to not follow Lincoln's decision. At four-thirty on the morning of April 12, the Confederate shelling of Fort Sumter began. And after 36 hours of crossfire, the Unionists lowered the flag on April 13. The fall of Fort Sumter started the Civil War and ignited a wave of bravado across the Confederate states. The guns of Charleston signaled the end of the waiting game.
