"Bill Would Make Site Where Civil War Began A National Park"

"CHARLESTON, S.C. — U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, the first black U.S. senator from the deep South since Reconstruction, is proposing that the site where the Civil War began be raised in status to that of a national park.

The Republican lawmaker has introduced a bill creating the Fort Sumter and Fort Moultrie National Park as the nation's 60th national park and second in South Carolina.

Fort Sumter, on Charleston Harbor, was bombarded by Confederate guns on April 12, 1861, in a fight that started four years of civil war.

Moultrie, located on nearby Sullivans Island, is where American patriots turned back a British fleet trying to capture Charleston days before the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

Both forts are part of the Fort Sumter National Monument, one of 84 national monuments among 413 sites administered by the National Park Service."

Bruce Smith reports for the Associated Press September 11, 2016.