At 4:30 on the morning of April 12, 1861, Confederate States of America artillery opened fire on United States troops in Fort Sumter, South Carolina, beginning the American Civil War. Texas became involved in the four-year conflict that would take the lives of many and affect everyone. The state escaped much of the terrible destruction of the war for a simple reason—Union troops never managed to invade and occupy the state's interior. The Civil War demanded a huge price, primarily in terms of lives lost in the Confederate Army and in the hardships of those left at home. However, the conflict had a positive result for Texas: It freed the state's more than 200,000 enslaved people.

Source: The Handbook of Civil War Texas
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