Civil War 150th anniversary marked this week - WCIV-TV | ABC News 4 - Charleston News, Sports, Weather

FORT SUMTER NATIONAL MONUMENT, S.C. (AP) - The opening salvo of the American Civil War will be recreated in the harbor of Charleston, S.C., as part of events marking this week's 150th anniversary of the start of the conflict.

The island stronghold Fort Sumter will be the focus. Part of the National Park Service, events can go ahead there now that a federal government shutdown was averted.

The superintendent of Fort Sumter National Monument, Tim Stone, says the observance is not a celebration but a somber commemoration of a war in which 600,000 Americans died

Concerts on Monday evening and before dawn Tuesday will precede a daylong recreation of the canon bombardment Tuesday. Confederate forces demanded that a Union garrison surrender the fort and fired on it on April 12, 1861. Union forces surrendered two days later.