Civil War begins in Charleston, South Carolina.

Confederate troops fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. The war effectively ends al most four years later, when Gen. Robert E. Lee surrenders to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia on April 9, 1865, although some fighting continues through May. Some 14,000 Massachusetts soldiers die in the war before, President Andrew Johnson formally declares its end on August 20, 1866.