ABSTRACT
The secession of seven states from the Lower South over the winter of 1860/1 was met with inactivity by
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Confederate forces opened fire on the fort, claiming that, as South Carolina no longer belonged to the Union, US soldiers had no right to occupy the fort. Lincoln’s determination to preserve the Union meant that he had little option other than to order a blockade of the Confederate coastline and the raising of an army of 75,000 men. His action provoked the secession in May of four more Southern states, including Virginia, a state which would prove vital to the South’s war effort, and the consequent loss of Robert E. Lee, a man to whom Lincoln had offered high command in the Union army.
