How the Clyde boomed from a confederacy of Civil War greed
At 4.30am on April 12, 1861, 150 years ago, a Confederate shell burst over Fort Sumter, South Carolina, triggering a Civil War in which 650,000 people died, more than all of the casualties sustained in all of America’s subsequent wars.
While the crucial role of Scots in American history is well-known, what has been largely forgotten is the part Clyde shipbuilding played in this world-changing conflict. Its intervention was overwhelmingly on the side of the losers, the slave-owning South.
