Fort Sumter circa 1865
One-hundred-fifty years ago today, April 12, 1861, the first shots were fired at the Fort Sumter military outpost in Charleston, S.C., marking the start of the Civil War. The brutal conflict dividing the country between northern and southern lines would last four years and claim the lives of some 620,000 soldiers.
More than 100 years later, the Bridgemen of Bayonne, N.J., paid tribute to the Civil War, closing their productions in both 1979 and 1980 with a medley of period tunes, costumes, flags and battle reenactments.
Kings and queens of playing to the crowd, Bridgemen's unique portrayal of a "drum-corps-ized" battle between Union and Confederate forces, often re-wrote history with the Confederacy winning in the end.
Re-live both United States and drum corps history with this clip of Bridgemen's "War Between the States" from the 1980 DCI World Championships in Birmingham, Ala.
