Essays on Civil War

April 12, 1861 - April 26, 1865

United States

Confederate States of America, United States

Battle of Antietam, Fort Pillow Massacre, Battle of Gettysburg, Battle of the Monitor and Merrimack, Battle of Monocacy

James Buchanan, Ulysses S. Grant, Robert E. Lee, Abraham Lincoln, Richard S. Ewell

American Civil War, also called War Between the States, was a four-year civil war fought between the United States and the Confederate States of America. The conflict was the costliest and deadliest war ever fought on American land.

The central cause of the war was the extension of slavery into new territories and states as a result of the Louisiana Purchase and the Mexican–American War. When Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 presidential election, seven Southern states (South Carolina, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, and Texas) have been organized as the Confederate States of America.

Fort Sumter became the site of the first shots of the Civil War. Four more southern states – Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina and Tennessee – joined the Confederacy after Fort Sumter. President Lincoln called for 75,000 militiamen to serve for three months. Lincoln insisted that the Confederate states was not legally a sovereign country, but were instead states in rebellion.

On September 22, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared that all enslaved people in the states currently engaged in rebellion against the Union “shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free” after January 1, 1863. In fact, it made ending slavery a war goal.

The Battle of Gettysburg was fought July 1–3, 1863, in and around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The battle marked the turning point of the Civil War. After a great victory over Union forces at Chancellorsville, General Robert E. Lee marched his Army of Northern Virginia into Pennsylvania in late June 1863.

The war ended on April 9, 1865, when Confederate General Lee surrendered to Union General Grant at the Battle of Appomattox Court House. By the end of the war, much of the South's infrastructure was destroyed, especially its railroads.

After the Confederacy collapsed, slavery was abolished, and four million enslaved black people were freed. The triumph of the North was partly due to the statesmanship of Lincoln. Following the American Civil War began the Reconstruction era.