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SC cadets re-enact 1861 firing on US supply ship

CHARLESTON, S.C. -- Gray-clad cadets from South Carolina's historic military college fired cannons Saturday on a barren, wind-swept island on Charleston Harbor to re-enact the 150th anniversary of a key episode leading up to the Civil War.

The event recalled what some consider the first shots of the war - the 1861 firing on the steamship Star of the West that was trying to reach Fort Sumter with supplies and 200 federal troops. Cadets manning a battery on Morris Island hit the ship and forced it to turn back.

Sumter was never resupplied and the Union garrison surrendered after a Confederate bombardment the following April, the episode considered by most the first engagement of the war....
Read entire article at AP