Fort Sumter has a 30 minute ride from the coast
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Nobody died at the battle of Fort Sumter. Although one person died during the surrenduring ceremoney when a cannon was went off.
The fort commanded the roads of Charleston and, crossing the fire of his artillery with those of Fort Moultrie, cut off the access to the port by an enemy naval force.
At the immediate beginning of the Civil War in April of 1861, Southern troops occupied Charleston Harbor's Fort Sumter, which had been bombarded into submission. Soon after, more states seceded from the Union, troops were raised and trained by both sides, skirmishes took place between small contingents of civilians and troops, and then, on July 21st of 1861, the war's first large-scale battle took place, the First Battle of Bull Run (or, First Manassas).
The South seceded from the Union. In their view, this made Fort Sumter part of their territory, being held by Union forces. They demanded that the Union soldiers surrender the fort. Lincoln had to either order the men holding the fort off... or he had to send a re-supply ship to provide the men at the Fort with the means to stay. He ordered the Fort to be re-supplied. This was taking to position that the Union was still the owner of the territory. South Carolina took this to be a provocation because it denied their rights to their own territory. If they were no longer part of the Union, then the Union could not have forces on their land. They began shelling to make this point.
The generally recognized "first shots" of the civil war were fired at Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor in Charleston, South Carolina at about 4:40 AM on 12 April, 1861 when Edmund Ruffin of Virginia, touched off a gun in the ironclad battery at Cummings Point - signal shell to tell the rest of the Confederate forces to begin their bombardment of Fort Sumter. Some claim that the first first shots were fired 3 months before the bombardment of Fort Sumter. On January 9th or 10th, 1861, Confederate batteries on Morris Island, manned by cadets from The Citadel, fired on the Union supply ship Star of the West. The Star of the West was attempting to resupply Union forces at Fort Sumter. Although the ship wasn't hit, Confederate forces were successful in driving the ship off. But there were also shots fired by northern/union forces on January 8th, 1861, at Fort Barrancas (Pensacola, Florida) under the command of Lt. Adam J. Slemmer, firing at what were probably Alabama militia.