In the early months of the war, General in Chief Winfield Scott advocated a plan to defeat the Confederacy derided by Union newspapers as the Anaconda Plan. Three weeks after the insurrection at Charleston, on May 6, the Confederate Congress formally declared war on the United States. Lincoln then proclaimed a blockade of the Confederacy. Two days later, Confederate President Jefferson Davis proclaimed the issuance of letters of marque to private ship owners to be Confederate privateers to attack United States non-combatant ship owners following the American practice in the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. Four Upper South slave states then declared for secession.

Two days after the surrender of the fort, President Abraham Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteer troops from loyal states to preserve the Union against the insurrection of seven Deep South States organized as the Confederate States of America. Within a week, the basic policies of the war were determined.

The Confederate bombardment of Fort Sumter was a 33-hour, one-sided ordeal which triggered the War of the Rebellion.

Editor’s note: This article is adapted from a presentation made by the author to the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable on February 12, 2014.

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