Civil War's Beginning Celebrated ... A Month Late

(Charleston, SC) — Booming cannons and hushed crowds ushered in the 150^th anniversary of America's bloodiest war today, as events here marked the 150th anniversary of the Confederate bombardment of Union-held Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. The commonly held belief is that the 34-hour engagement plunged the nation into four years of war at a cost of more than 600,000 lives. But newly-released documents show that the Civil War did not begin on April 12, 1861, but rather experienced its first battle a month earlier, on March 12, 1861.

The Battle of Safeway Gorge, a little-known skirmish that took place in Charleston, SC, is rewriting the country's history books on the 150th anniversary of what is being billed as the "official" anniversary of the start of the conflagration.

Trying to rid the city of union sympathizers, a group of insurgents stole approximately 100 shopping carts from the local Safeway supermarket (the supermarket still stands today, but is now a Piggly Wiggly). They filled the shopping carts with all kinds of diseased and decaying animals, meats and produce. They lugged them up to the top of the city's highest point, Mount Charleston, then pushed them down the hill into the gorge below, then known as Sumter Gorge, where Union sympathizers were camped out to protest cuts in members' collective bargaining rights. Wave after wave of contaminated shopping carts made their way down the hill, dislodging the entrenched Union supporters without firing a shot.

The episode cost the grocery store most of its shopping carts, and with no shopping carts available to aid the citizens of Charleston with their grocery shopping, Fort Sumter was unable to be resupplied. A month later, a resupply convoy sent by President Lincoln was unsuccessful, shots were fired, and the Civil War was underway. In honor of the battle, Charleston's residents renamed the gorge for the supermarket that, they thought, had inaugurated their drive for independence.