Private Daniel Hough

Daniel Hough was an Irish-born American soldier who, historians claim, became the first man to die in the American Civil War. This is something of a misnomer, for his death was accidental. On April 14, 1861, a cannon went off prematurely during a salute to the flag two days after the Battle of Fort Sumter, which was the zero-casualty skirmish by which the seceded state of South Carolina and the newly formed Confederate States Army forced the United States Army to relinquish control of the fort near Charleston.