Portal:American Civil War

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The American Civil War Portal

Statue of Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial

The American Civil War (1861–1865) was a sectional rebellion against the United States of America by the Confederate States, formed of eleven southern states' governments which moved to secede from the Union after the 1860 election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States. The Union's victory was eventually achieved by leveraging advantages in population, manufacturing and logistics and through a strategic naval blockade denying the Confederacy access to the world's markets.

In many ways, the conflict's central issues – the enslavement of African Americans, the role of constitutional federal government, and the rights of states – are still not completely resolved. Not surprisingly, the Confederate army's surrender at Appomattox on April 9,1865 did little to change many Americans' attitudes toward the potential powers of central government. The passage of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments to the Constitution in the years immediately following the war did not change the racial prejudice prevalent among Americans of the day; and the process of Reconstruction did not heal the deeply personal wounds inflicted by four brutal years of war and more than 970,000 casualties – 3 percent of the population, including approximately 560,000 deaths. As a result, controversies affected by the war's unresolved social, political, economic and racial tensions continue to shape contemporary American thought. The causes of the war, the reasons for the outcome, and even the name of the war itself are subjects of much discussion even today. (Full article)

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The Siege of Vicksburg - Assault on Fort Hill by Thure de Thulstrup

The Siege of Vicksburg (May 18 – July 4, 1863) was the final major military action in the Vicksburg campaign of the American Civil War. In a series of maneuvers, Union Major General Ulysses S. Grant and his Army of the Tennessee crossed the Mississippi River and drove the Confederate Army of Mississippi, led by Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton, into the defensive lines surrounding the fortress city of Vicksburg, Mississippi, leading to the successful siege and Confederate surrender.

Vicksburg was the last major Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi River; therefore, capturing it completed the second part of the Northern strategy, the Anaconda Plan. When two major assaults against the Confederate fortifications, on May 19 and 22, were repulsed with heavy casualties, Grant decided to besiege the city beginning on May 25. After holding out for more than 40 days, with their supplies nearly gone, the garrison surrendered on July 4. The Vicksburg campaign's successful ending significantly degraded the Confederacy's ability to maintain its war effort. This action, combined with the surrender of the downriver Port Hudson to Major General Nathaniel P. Banks on July 9, yielded command of the Mississippi River to the Union forces, which held it for the rest of the conflict. (Full article...)

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Grand Parade of the States

The role of Washington Territory in the American Civil War is atypical, as the territory was the most remote from the main battlefields of the conflict. The territory raised a small number of volunteers for the Union Army, who did not fight against the Confederate States Army but instead maintained defensive positions against possible foreign naval or land attacks. Although the Indian Wars in Washington were recent, there were no Indian hostilities within the area of modern Washington, unlike the rest of the western states and territories, during the Civil War. At the start of the American Civil War, modern-day Washington was part of the Washington Territory. On March 3, 1863, the Idaho Territory was formed from that territory, consisting of the entirety of modern-day Idaho, Montana, and all but southwest Wyoming, leaving the modern-day Washington as Washington Territory. (Full article...)

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Thaddeus Stevens (April 4, 1792 – August 11, 1868) was an American politician and lawyer who served as a member of the United States House of Representatives from Pennsylvania, being one of the leaders of the Radical Republican faction of the Republican Party during the 1860s. A fierce opponent of slavery and discrimination against black Americans, Stevens sought to secure their rights during Reconstruction, leading the opposition to U.S. President Andrew Johnson. As chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee during the American Civil War, he played a leading role, focusing his attention on defeating the Confederacy, financing the war with new taxes and borrowing, crushing the power of slave owners, ending slavery, and securing equal rights for the freedmen.

Stevens was born in rural Vermont, in poverty, and with a club foot, which left him with a permanent limp. He moved to Pennsylvania as a young man and quickly became a successful lawyer in Gettysburg. He interested himself in municipal affairs and then in politics. He was an active leader of the Anti-Masonic Party, as a fervent believer that Freemasonry in the United States was an evil conspiracy to secretly control the republican system of government. He was elected to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, where he became a strong advocate of free public education. Financial setbacks in 1842 caused him to move his home and practice to the larger city of Lancaster. There, he joined the Whig Party and was elected to Congress in 1848. His activities as a lawyer and politician in opposition to slavery cost him votes, and he did not seek reelection in 1852. After a brief flirtation with the Know-Nothing Party, Stevens joined the newly formed Republican Party and was elected to Congress again in 1858. There, with fellow radicals such as Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner, he opposed the expansion of slavery and concessions to the South as the war came. (Full article...)

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Image 1The burning of Columbia at Columbia, South Carolina in the American Civil War, by William Waud
Image 2Quaker guns, by George Barnard and James F. Gibson
Image 3Daniel McCallum, by the Brady National Photographic Art Gallery
Image 4Abraham Lincoln's private secretary and biographer John Hay
Image 5The Chickahominy – Sumner's Upper Bridge at Peninsula campaign, by William McIlvaine
Image 6Abner Doubleday
Image 7United States President (and former Brigadier-General) Benjamin Harrison
Image 8Battle of Franklin, by Kurz and Allison
Image 9African-American Civil War soldiers
Image 10First Battle of Bull Run map
Image 11Andersonville survivor
Image 12Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
Image 13George Atzerodt, by Alexander Gardner
Image 14Lithographic facsimile of the Bixby letter, by Huber's Museum
Image 15William H. Seward, United States Secretary of State during the American Civil War
Image 16Robert E. Lee, by Levin Corbin Handy
Image 17Richmond, Virginia after the American Civil War
Image 18Confederate casualties at Chancellorsville during the American Civil War, by the National Archives and Records Administration
Image 19Charles Pomeroy Stone
Image 20William Birney
Image 21Battle of Kennesaw Mountain, by Alfred Waud
Image 22Ulysses S. Grant, by Thure de Thulstrup
Image 23John A. Dahlgren, by Mathew Brady
Image 24Braxton Bragg
Image 25Battle of Harpers Ferry, by Robert Knox Sneden
Image 26Christian Fleetwood
Image 27Charles Griffin
Image 28Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, by Thure de Thulstrup
Image 29The original sketch of Sherman in South Carolina: The burning of McPhersonville, at and by William Waud
Image 30President Rutherford B. Hayes was the 19th President of the USA
Image 31George Armstrong Custer, by George L. Andrews
Image 32Harriet Tubman
Image 33Siege of Yorktown, by James F. Gibson
Image 34Christopher Raymond Perry Rodgers
Image 35The print version of Sherman in South Carolina: The burning of McPhersonville at McPhersonville, South Carolina, by William Waud
Image 36Military execution of the conspirators in the Abraham Lincoln assassination
Image 37Atlanta roundhouse ruin at History of Atlanta, by George Barnard
Image 38Ambrose Burnside, by Matthew Brady
Image 39Pickett's Charge, by Thure de Thulstrup
Image 40John Lorimer Worden, by Mathew Brady
Image 41John F. Reynolds, by Alfred Rudolph Waud
Image 42Andersonville Prison at Andersonville National Historic Site, by John L. Ransom
Image 43Francis B. Spinola, Brigadier General for the Union in the American Civil War, and Congressman from New York
Image 44David Dixon Porter, by Mathew Brady
Image 45Allan Pinkerton, President Lincoln, and John A. McClernand in 1862 by Alexander Gardner
Image 46Battle of Fort Sanders, by Kurz and Allison

Did you know...

... that Enoch Marvin Banks resigned from the University of Florida because of public outrage over his belief that the American Civil War was caused by slavery?
... that the Confederate States Navy ordered six Squib-class torpedo boats from England, but they were never delivered?
... that Byron Root Pierce was Michigan's last living Civil War general?
... that singer Frank Croxton performed a duet with his father for the unveiling of a monument to a Confederate States Army general?
... that CSS Beaufort fought USS Albatross in the first ship-versus-ship action of the American Civil War?
... that some Confederate bullets were sourced from a silver mine?