Hello and welcome to This Day, a history show from Radiotopia.

My name is Jody Avergan.

Welcome to 50 Weeks that shaped America, Week 15.

Now, already in the last 15 weeks, no surprise, we have mentioned the Civil War a bunch.

We've talked about westward expansion, putting a pressure on the question of slavery.

We've talked about Lincoln's second inaugural, which came at the end of the war.

But today is our first proper Civil War battle episode, and it is about the first proper Civil War battle.

The first shots fired at Fort Subter in South Carolina in April of 1861.

Obviously, the war had been brewing politically and morally and strategically for years,

but this was the first moment that actual gunfire was exchanged between the North and the South.

The South shot first, and it was the south that technically could proclaim victory in that battle,

but the story of Fort Subder would fuel both the south and the north in the weeks and years to come.

So let's get into it.

We have soldiers hold up in a tiny fort.

We have Abraham Lincoln's strategic chess match with Jefferson Davis.

We have a guy named Little Napoleon. So here to discuss, as always, Nicoleheimer of Vanderbilt

and Kelly Carter Jackson of Wellesley. Hello there. Hello, Jody. Hey there. Isn't Little Napoleon

a little redundant? I was, that's exactly what I was going to say. And we will meet Beauregard, who was nicknamed that later in the episode. Now, look, you're spoiling some of my character sketching Beauregard. But he, he was compared to Napoleon the third, not Napoleon Bonaparte. So maybe little was, but he always resented the fact that they weren't comparing him to the, you know, the most famous Napoleon. But yes, Little Napoleon. Pick a better dictator. I know, right? Exactly. Little Napoleon struck me as well. The other thing that it struck me in doing this. And maybe I'm completely alone. But I always want to put an N in this name. I always want to say Summtner, Summter, as opposed to S, it's S-U-M-T-E-R. And maybe it's just the way I pronounce things, but I've always wanted to put, I've always thought it was sumter or something. I kind of want to put a P in there, right? S-U-M-P-T-R. The end just, like, makes my entire mouth go haywire.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Fort Sumter.

No, Fort Sumter.

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