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The Civil War
(1861-1865)
 Fort Sumter

Fort Sumter
Reading Level
     edHelper's suggested reading level:   high interest, readability grades 4 to 6
     Flesch-Kincaid grade level:   4.43

Vocabulary
     challenging words:    acceptable, ammunition, secede, attack, presented, bravery, running, shots, defend, election, gunpowder, supplies, surrender, battle, order, danger
     content words:    Fort Sumter, Abraham Lincoln, South Carolina, Charleston Harbor, After South Carolina, Confederate Commander, General Beauregard, On April, Major Robert Anderson, Confederate Army

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Fort Sumter
By Cathy Pearl 		  
1     Caption: The Confederate attack on Fort Sumter
 
2     Abraham Lincoln won the election in 1860. He would be the country's next president. At this point, it was clear that the country could not avoid a war. Within weeks of the election, Southern states started to secede from the Union.
 
3     Fort Sumter was a fort in South Carolina. It sat near the water's edge and protected Charleston Harbor. After South Carolina left the Union, they demanded that the fort surrender. At the time, Lincoln and the Union government controlled the fort.
 
4     Lincoln did not want to give the fort up. He had been told that there weren't enough supplies in the fort to defend it. Lincoln came up with a plan. He would send a supply ship to the fort and tell the South Carolina governor it was coming. If the ship got through, the fort would have enough supplies to fight if needed, or the South would shoot at the ship. This would force them to fire the first shot and start a war.

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