South Carolina had a bone to pick with the Federal Union of colonial states. A tariff imposed to help protect American businesses made products they used to buy from England more expensive, and led South Carolina to be the first state to secede from the Union. The only problem – a garrison of Union troops still occupied a fort at Sumter. With land supply lines now cut off, president James Buchanan decided to send a civilian merchant ship, the Star of the West, to resupply the garrison. It did not get there.

On this day, January 9th, in 1861, the Star of the West entered Charleston Harbor where it immediately came under fire from cannons at Morris Island. A warning shot went across its bow. Another flew dangerously near the wheelhouse, and several more grazed the ship. Seeing no help from Fort Sumter, and a South Carolina ship about to open up on the Star of the West, its captain ordered a retreat. The event marked the first shots of the conflict that would eventually turn into the American Civil War.

The Star of the West returned intact, and its crew was rewarded for the danger. The ship itself was decommissioned, but remains a powerful legacy in South Carolina: every year the “best drilled cadet” in the The Citadel, the military college of South Carolina, receives the Star of the West Medal containing a small piece of wood salvaged from the original ship.