Task: Question Answering
Input (English): passage: South Carolina was the first state to secede from the Union (Dec. 1860), and was one of the founder members of the Confederacy (Feb. 1861). The bombardment of the beleaguered U.S. garrison at Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor on April 12, 1861 is normally reckoned as the first military engagement of the war.
 question: was south carolina the first state to secede from the union?
Output (English): Yes