A century and a half after the opening shots of the U.S. Civil War, nearly four in 10 Southerners say they still sympathize with the Confederacy.

That's according to a new CNN poll released on the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War, when Union soldiers raised a U.S. flag over Fort Sumter in South Carolina and the opening shots of the war rang out. The poll's results reveal that the war that divided the nation for four years still divides American public opinion today.

In the South, 38 percent of respondents said they sympathize with the Confederacy, which lost the bloody war. More than 600,000 American soldiers on both sides were killed. Overall, the number from all geographic areas who said they still side with the South is less than a quarter.