The First Civil War Death

The firing on Fort Sumter in South Carolina on April 12, 1861 is considered the opening battle of America's Civil War. But no one died in the thirty-four-hour skirmish, thirty-three hours of which involved consecutive cannon fire. That first fatality in the Civil War came only after the union Army at the fort had surrendered.

On April 14, while Union soldiers were firing a salute to the flag before evacuating the fort, an accidental explosion killed a Union soldier, Gunner Daniel Hough. He was a private in Battery E of the 1st U.S. Artillery and had survived the first battle of the Civil War only to die by mistake during the lull following the fighting.