Bombardment of Fort Sumter

in Charleston, Harbor, South Carolina. It's dawn here this morning on April 12, 1861, the long night of waiting is over. In a few minutes we'll know what the United States is to be divided into two independent nations split by civil war.

Major Robert Anderson, commander of Fort Sumter, is about ready to give his reply to the Confederate demand that he surrender this northern fortress in the heart of the seceded South. If Major Anderson does name a surrender date, That will be assigned. The federal government is unable to maintain its authority in the slavery states.

But if he refuses to yield Sumter, that will be a challenge to the concept of states rights under which the Confederacy has been formed. The Confederate guns may then open fire in this port, an act that would probably be the signal for civil war between the north and the south.

The officers gathered here in the Garden with Port Sumter have received no advance indication as to what Major Anderson will do. Some eight roads go forth, but the 1861, this is the moment we, Charleston, South Carolina.

You. States right or federal sovereignty. The North and the South confront each other at Fort Sumter. Will there be peace at the cost of union or civil war? CBS takes you back 88 years to the great crisis of the American Republic.

All things are as they were then except for one thing. When CBS is there, you are there. You are there, produced and directed by Robert Louis Cheon, is based on authentic historical facts and quotations.

And now? Charleston. The guard room at Fort Sumter. They open doors. And Don Hollenbank. And to the Civil War. There are about 15 officers and men here in the bare gloomy candlelit guard room at Fort Sumter.