What better way to finish up our tour of Civil War battlefields than a stop at Fort Sumter where the first shots of the Civil War occurred. The visitor center exhibit is free and on the Charleston side of the bay next to the Charleston Aquarium. To get to the fort you must buy tickets through a vendor to get ferried across. The tickets were $30 per person. Thus making this the most expensive national park/monument that we have visited since we stopped working six weeks ago.

April 12, 1861 was the day the opening shots of the Civil War rang out. This fort is at the mouth of the harbor that protects Charleston, SC. The Union Army held the fort in 1861 but once lost it was held by the Confederates for the rest of the war.