Civil War States: North and South Carolina

The first shot of the Civil War was fired at South Carolina's Fort Sumter. The shot, however, didn't actually hit anything. A 10-inch mortar shell exploded above Fort Sumter, a signal to the Confederate forces to start firing on the Union-held fort. Learn about the many precipitating factors that led to the start of the Civil War at the Fort Sumter National Monument Web site.

Heritage Preservation Services posts interactive maps of the Civil War battles fought in the United States. In total, 11 battles were fought in South Carolina, and 20 were fought in North Carolina. Click on a location to read a summary of the skirmishes and learn who the victors were in each fight.

The North Carolina Museum of History takes a deeper look at some of the people involved in the Civil War than at the war itself (although you'll still find a great deal of Civil War history here as well), along with great videos showing the exhibits offered at the museum and readings of poignant Civil War letters written by soldiers and their family members.

After seceding from the Union, Confederate states were no longer bound by the regulations of the United States Constitution that forbade the production of state-issued currency. The Confederate Constitution offered states the opportunity to produce their own currencies, and North Carolina did so. Generally speaking, so many different types of currency in the South created financial instability. You can see a sample of North Carolina's Civil War currency at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Web site.

Mary Boykin Chestnut was the wife of one of the leading politicians in South Carolina, and her diary of those events is considered an important chronicle of the Civil War. She was a friend of Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy, and his wife Varina, but she doubted the validity of slavery and worried about the future of the South. Learn more about Chestnut, Jefferson Davis, and many other important figures from the North and South who played a role in the war at this PBS site.