Charleston, S.C. » From the back of a cannon in Fort Sumter, the church steeples of Charleston are clearly visible across the harbor.

Charleston is proud of its historic steeples, most notably St. Michael's Episcopal, St. Philip's Episcopal and St. Matthew's Lutheran. There are so many churches its nickname is "the Holy City."

Charleston is also proud (still) of having fired the first shot of the American Civil War. In April 1861, city residents clambered onto church roofs and into steeples to watch Fort Sumter get blasted.

Looking out from a gun embrasure on Fort Sumter, I can see those same steeples and rooftops today. Long a Civil War buff, I've traveled 2,000 miles for the view.

One of my favorite accounts of the Civil War is religious in nature in that it involves churches and an angel.

During the summer of 1863, the Union forces tightened their siege of Charleston. In a marsh on Morris Island, they built a platform on pilings sunk 20 feet to bedrock. Onto this were loaded 13,000 sandbags hauled over two miles. The capstone was an 8-ton Parrott rifle.

Capable of throwing a 150-pound shell over four miles -- more specifically smack into the middle of downtown Charleston -- the gun was dubbed the "Swamp Angel."

Shortly after midnight on Aug. 22, the Swamp Angel began lobbing incendiary shells into the South's Holy City. Because of the distance, knowing whether

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they were on target consisted of listening to the warning bong of church bells.

Charleston residents were understandably upset. It's one thing to enjoy seeing someone else get shot at and quite another when the bomb lands on the other foot. Shooting at noncombatants, and especially churches, was denounced as an act of "inexcusable barbarity."

Northern response to this charge amounted to, "Hey, you started it."

In reality, the Swamp Angel didn't cause much damage beyond the psychological. In order to reach the city, it was necessary to overcharge the gun. On the 36th round, it blew up. But it was fun while it lasted.

As the war progressed, Charleston's church steeples continued to serve as aiming points for lots of other Union guns. During a single week in January 1864, nearly 1,500 shells were fired at the center of Unholy Secession.

Churches were hit, services interrupted, but no one was reported killed in a Charleston church. Today, the marks of Union cannonballs are proudly pointed out to tourists.

I love the irony of using church steeples to sight artillery, particularly when those churches deliberately stepped away from their noncombatant roles.

Charleston's churches once resounded with enthusiastic support for fratricide and the "inexcusable barbarity" of slavery. Some even donated their bells to be recast as cannon for the Confederacy. In cases like this, I mean, really, why not shoot at a church?

Today, I prefer a more metaphorical form of shooting. When a church swerves outside its role of promoting peace and brotherly love, it deserves the fire it draws.

Robert Kirby can be reached at rkirby@sltrib.com.