Artillery dual at long distance constituted the first battle
of the civil war. Inside Fort Sumter, eighty-five Federals, who were aided by
forty-three civilian workmen, managed to get off numerous shots at
installations manned by more than 6,000 secessionists. During the
thirty-eight-hour exchange of fire from sixty-nine big buns, more than 3,00
shells, some of them hot shot heated in a furnace, were fired. Not a man among
the defenders or attackers was killed.
