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The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union [e] ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), which had been formed by states that had seceded from the Union. The central conflict leading to the war was the dispute over whether slavery would be ...
- April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865, (4 years, 1 month and 2 weeks)
- Dissolution of the Confederate States of America
- United States, Atlantic Ocean
- Overview
- Prelude to war
The American Civil War was the culmination of the struggle between the advocates and opponents of slavery that dated from the founding of the United States. This sectional conflict between Northern states and slaveholding Southern states had been tempered by a series of political compromises, but by the late 1850s the issue of the extension of slavery to the western states had reached a boiling point. The election of Abraham Lincoln, a member of the antislavery Republican Party, as president in 1860 precipitated the secession of 11 Southern states, leading to a civil war.
Who won the American Civil War?
The Union won the American Civil War. The war effectively ended in April 1865 when Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his troops to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia. The final surrender of Confederate troops on the western periphery came in Galveston, Texas, on June 2.
How many people died during the Civil War?
It is estimated that from 752,000 to 851,000 soldiers died during the American Civil War. This figure represents approximately 2 percent of the American population in 1860. The Battle of Gettysburg, one of the bloodiest engagements during the Civil War, resulted in about 7,000 deaths and 51,000 total casualties.
Who were the most important figures in the American Civil War?
The secession of the Southern states (in chronological order, South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina) in 1860–61 and the ensuing outbreak of armed hostilities were the culmination of decades of growing sectional friction over slavery. Between 1815 and 1861 the economy of the Northern states was rapidly modernizing and diversifying. Although agriculture—mostly smaller farms that relied on free labour—remained the dominant sector in the North, industrialization had taken root there. Moreover, Northerners had invested heavily in an expansive and varied transportation system that included canals, roads, steamboats, and railroads; in financial industries such as banking and insurance; and in a large communications network that featured inexpensive, widely available newspapers, magazines, and books, along with the telegraph.
By contrast, the Southern economy was based principally on large farms (plantations) that produced commercial crops such as cotton and that relied on slaves as the main labour force. Rather than invest in factories or railroads as Northerners had done, Southerners invested their money in slaves—even more than in land; by 1860, 84 percent of the capital invested in manufacturing was invested in the free (nonslaveholding) states. Yet, to Southerners, as late as 1860, this appeared to be a sound business decision. The price of cotton, the South’s defining crop, had skyrocketed in the 1850s, and the value of slaves—who were, after all, property—rose commensurately. By 1860 the per capita wealth of Southern whites was twice that of Northerners, and three-fifths of the wealthiest individuals in the country were Southerners.
The extension of slavery into new territories and states had been an issue as far back as the Northwest Ordinance of 1784. When the slave territory of Missouri sought statehood in 1818, Congress debated for two years before arriving upon the Missouri Compromise of 1820. This was the first of a series of political deals that resulted from arguments between pro-slavery and antislavery forces over the expansion of the “peculiar institution,” as it was known, into the West. The end of the Mexican-American War in 1848 and the roughly 500,000 square miles (1.3 million square km) of new territory that the United States gained as a result of it added a new sense of urgency to the dispute. More and more Northerners, driven by a sense of morality or an interest in protecting free labour, came to believe, in the 1850s, that bondage needed to be eradicated. White Southerners feared that limiting the expansion of slavery would consign the institution to certain death. Over the course of the decade, the two sides became increasingly polarized and politicians less able to contain the dispute through compromise. When Abraham Lincoln, the candidate of the explicitly antislavery Republican Party, won the 1860 presidential election, seven Southern states (South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas) carried out their threat and seceded, organizing as the Confederate States of America.
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In the early morning hours of April 12, 1861, rebels opened fire on Fort Sumter, at the entrance to the harbour of Charleston, South Carolina. Curiously, this first encounter of what would be the bloodiest war in the history of the United States claimed no victims. After a 34-hour bombardment, Maj. Robert Anderson surrendered his command of about 85 soldiers to some 5,500 besieging Confederate troops under P.G.T. Beauregard. Within weeks, four more Southern states (Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina) left the Union to join the Confederacy.
- Causes of the Civil War. In the mid-19th century, while the United States was experiencing an era of tremendous growth, a fundamental economic difference existed between the country’s northern and southern regions.
- Outbreak of the Civil War (1861) Even as Lincoln took office in March 1861, Confederate forces threatened the federal-held Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina.
- The Civil War in Virginia (1862) George B. McClellan—who replaced the aging General Winfield Scott as supreme commander of the Union Army after the first months of the war—was beloved by his troops, but his reluctance to advance frustrated Lincoln.
- After the Emancipation Proclamation (1863-4) Lincoln had used the occasion of the Union victory at Antietam to issue a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which freed all enslaved people in the rebellious states after January 1, 1863.
Learn about the bloodiest and most divisive conflict in U.S. history, pitting the Union Army against the Confederate States of America. Explore topics, stories, videos and videos on the causes, dates and battles of the Civil War, from the first shots fired at Fort Sumter to the end of the war in 1865.
Nov 20, 2008 · Learn how the Civil War of 1861-1865 resolved the fundamental questions of the nation's identity and future. Explore the major battles, events, and outcomes of the war that ended slavery and preserved the Union.
American Civil War Timeline. Lists covering some of the major causes and effects of the American Civil War, conflict between the United States and the 11 Southern states that seceded from the Union. The war, which arose out of disputes over the issues of slavery and states’ rights, proved to be the deadliest conflict in American history.
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The American Civil War saw the first aerial reconnaissance using balloons, systematic medical care of the wounded, soldiers voting from the field, and modern war production of armaments. So many died in the war that a system of government cemeteries had to be established to bury the dead.
