The Civil War

At 4:30 a.m. on April 12th 1861 Confederate forces fired upon a small Union garrison at Fort Sumter South Carolina. Thus began the Civil War during which twice as many Americans died as in World War II. It would be America's bloodiest conflict. But the changes wrought in American Government were as significant as the war's casualities. America became nation under a strong executive power-a nation that the founding fathers scarcely would have recognized.