CHARLESTON, S.C. — Booming cannons, plaintive period music and hushed crowds ushered in the 150th anniversary of America’s bloodiest war Tuesday, a commemoration that continues to underscore a racial divide that has plagued the nation since before the Civil War.
The events marked the 150th anniversary of the Confederate bombardment of Union-held Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, an engagement that plunged the nation into four years of war at a cost of more than 600,000 lives.
Several hundred people gathered on Charleston’s Battery in predawn darkness, much as Charleston residents gathered 150 years ago to view the bombardment of April 12, 1861.
In darkness, nation torn in 2
At about 4 a.m., a single beam of light reached skyward from the stone works of Fort Sumter. About half an hour later, about the time the first shots were fired, a second beam glowed, signifying a nation torn in two.
Nearby, a brass ensemble played.
Fifty years ago during the centennial of the Civil War, there was a celebratory mood. But on Tuesday, the 150th- anniversary events were muted. Even the applause was subdued.
Of about 1,200 people attending two main commemorative events, only a handful were black.
“I think it signifies the mood of the nation. I think we’re much more sensitive to other people and the diversity in this country,” said Linda Marshall, a 58-year-old registered nurse from Charleston, as she waited for the second beam of light as dawn crept up.
A little more than two hours later, as a red sun rose on James Island across the harbor, Confederate re-enactors fired an authentic 1847 seacoast mortar, signaling about 30 other cannons ringing the harbor.
Those cannons quickly thumped, and smoke rose in a re-enactment of the Sumter bombardment.
In a dispatch to The Associated Press in 1861, an unnamed correspondent observed the fort’s parapets crumbling under the pounding of artillery. He wrote of gun emplacements being “shot away” and shells falling “thick and fast.”
“The ball has opened. War is inaugurated . . . Fort Sumter has returned the fire and brisk cannonading has been kept up,” the dispatch said.
Sumter fell after a 34-hour bombardment.
Ancestor fired first shot
One of those on hand on James Island was John Hugh Farley of Roswell, Ga. Many historians credit Lt. Henry Farley, Farley’s ancestor, as firing the first shot at Sumter.
“It’s a real big honor. We are very proud of our family,” said Farley, who had two other ancestors fight for the South. “It certainly is a mixed blessing because it’s bringing back a memory from way back but it also helps us to look at history and learn from history.”
Benjamin Todd Jealous, the president and chief executive of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said in a statement released by the civil-rights group, “In this moment of remembrance, let us all do the tough truth telling necessary for our nation to finally heal from the sins of slavery and fratricide.”
“Commemorative events must neither ignore slavery as the principal cause of the Civil War, nor romanticize those who fought to keep African Americans in slavery,” he said. “This is a time for the nation to reflect and repent, not ignore — let alone celebrate — the atrocities that tore our country apart.”
State Sen. Glenn McConnell, president pro tempore of the South Carolina Senate and a Civil War re-enactor, told the audience of about 700 on James Island that the effects of the war are still being felt.
“The War Between the States triggered generations of disputes and controversies between regions, races and cultures,” he said. “. . . Many of the emotional issues still rage.”
Later, a black Union re-enactor representing a soldier from the 54th Massachusetts threw a wreath into the water and saluted.
