Interior view of Fort Sumter, Charleston Harbour, South Carolina, USA, 1866

Interior view of Fort Sumter, Charleston Harbour, South Carolina, USA, 1866. Albumen print by G N Barnard (1819-1902) of the site where the first shots of the American Civil War were fired on 12 April 1861. Confederate general Beauregard ordered the batteries around the port of Charleston to fire on Union forces in Fort Sumter. The Confederate bombardment forced the Union garrison to surrender the next day. For the next four years the Union blockaded Charleston and bombarded the fort. The war had been precipitated by the secession of South Carolina from the Union when Abraham Lincoln, who supported the abolition of slavery, was elected President in 1860. Photograph from an album entitled 'Canada and the United States.1867' by John Downes Rochfort, who toured the Civil War battlefields in 1867. ©SSPL/National Media Museum