In a note to readers, Erik Larson draws parallels between the upcoming narrative—which focuses on the events precipitating the American Civil War—and the assault on the US Capitol Building that occurred on January 6, 2021 (See: Background). He suspects that his readers’ feelings of dread may be even more pronounced in the modern political climate, in which some Americans are again whispering of secession and Civil War.

Just after midnight on April 12, 1861, “the single-most consequential day of American history” (3), three Confederate officers visited Fort Sumter. Major Robert Anderson commanded the powerful fort with 75 other Union men, far short of the 650 soldiers that typically would have been needed to man the defenses. Anderson and his men were nearly out of food.

Fort Sumter was in the bay off Charleston, South Carolina, a central hub for the domestic trade of enslaved people. At the time, there were nearly four million enslaved people in the American South. South Carolina had more enslaved people living inside it than non-enslaved people. Southern enslavers and planters, who called themselves “the chivalry,” set up lots of rules to control the enslaved people, such as a nightly curfew in Charleston.