On the twelfth of April,
Confederate guns opened fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor
thus beginning the bloodiest conflict in American History --
620,000 casulties -- more than all other American wars combined 62
The Civil War remains this nation's single most defining experience
ultimately giving new meaning to the word "Freedom"
Walt Whitman, a young newspaperman
destined to become America's greatest poet wrote:
"Future years will never know the seething hell “
and the black infernal background of this war --
and it is best they should not--
the real war will never get in the books."