Fort Sumter Visitor & Education Center

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Lonely Planet review

Confederates fired the first shots of the Civil War at Fort Sumter, an artificial island at the entrance to Charleston Harbor, where the Union army had retreated. The Union contingent surrendered and, as a Confederate stronghold, Fort Sumter was shelled by Union forces from 1863 to 1865.

By the end of the war it was a pile of rubble, and some very forbidding concrete defenses were added later. A few original guns and fortifications and the obvious strategic location give a feel for the momentous history here, and there's a good little museum as well.