Portal:American Civil War

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The American Civil War Portal

The capture of Rickett's battery during the First Battle of Bull Run

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 CSS *Shenandoah* being repaired in Australia

Despite being across the world from the conflict, the Australian colonies were affected by the American Civil War both economically and by immigration. The Australian cotton crop became more important to England, which had lost its American sources, and it served as a supply base for Confederate blockade runners. Immigrants from Europe seeking a better life also found Australia preferable to war-torn North America.

The Australian public was shocked by the revelation by a turncoat Russian officer, who claimed that a direct engagement was secretly planned by Russia in case the Confederacy was recognised by Britain. The Russian navy had just paid Australia a visit in preparation for launching attacks. Fear of a possible military confrontation led to a massive buildup of coastal defences and to the acquisition of an ironclad warship. (Full article...)

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Grand Parade of the States

Kentucky was a southern border state of key importance in the American Civil War. It officially declared its neutrality at the beginning of the war, but after a failed attempt by Confederate General Leonidas Polk to take the state of Kentucky for the Confederacy, the legislature petitioned the Union Army for assistance. Though the Confederacy controlled more than half of Kentucky early in the war, after early 1862 Kentucky came largely under U.S. control. In the historiography of the Civil War, Kentucky is treated primarily as a southern border state, with special attention to the social divisions during the secession crisis, invasions and raids, internal violence, sporadic guerrilla warfare, federal-state relations, the ending of slavery, and the return of Confederate veterans.

Kentucky was the site of several fierce battles, including Mill Springs and Perryville. It was the arena to such military leaders as Ulysses S. Grant on the Union side, who first encountered serious Confederate gunfire coming from Columbus, Kentucky, and Confederate cavalry leader Nathan Bedford Forrest. Forrest proved to be a scourge to the Union Army in western Kentucky, even making an attack on Paducah. Kentuckian John Hunt Morgan further challenged Union control, as he conducted numerous cavalry raids through the state. (Full article...)

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Garfield in 1881

James Abram Garfield (November 19, 1831 – September 19, 1881) was the 20th president of the United States, serving from March 1881 until his death the following September after being shot by an assassin in July. A preacher, lawyer, and Civil War general, Garfield served nine terms in the United States House of Representatives and is the only sitting member of the House to be elected president. Before his candidacy for the presidency, he had been elected to the U.S. Senate by the Ohio General Assembly—a position he declined when he became president-elect.

Garfield was born into poverty in a log cabin and grew up in northeastern Ohio. After graduating from Williams College, he studied law and became an attorney. He was a preacher in the Stone–Campbell Movement and president of the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute, affiliated with the Disciples. Garfield was elected as a Republican member of the Ohio State Senate in 1859, serving until 1861. He opposed Confederate secession, was a major general in the Union Army during the American Civil War, and fought in the battles of Middle Creek, Shiloh, and Chickamauga. Garfield was elected to Congress in 1862 to represent Ohio's 19th district. Throughout his congressional service, he firmly supported the gold standard and gained a reputation as a skilled orator. He initially agreed with Radical Republican views on Reconstruction but later favored a Moderate Republican–aligned approach to civil rights enforcement for freedmen. Garfield's aptitude for mathematics extended to his own proof of the Pythagorean theorem, which he published in 1876. (Full article...)

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

Did you know...

... that Chinese-born Joseph Pierce enlisted as a Union Army soldier, fought at the Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War, and was made a corporal?
... that Francis Orray Ticknor was a country doctor whose fame as a poet relies on "Little Giffen", a poem about one of his patients who died in the American Civil War?
... that after the Little Rock campaign, Union forces held three-quarters of Arkansas?
... that the only functioning secondary school in Mississippi during the American Civil War was founded by Thomas S. Gathright?
... that Emma Dean Powell received a pass from General Ulysses S. Grant to accompany her husband to battlefield camps during the American Civil War after he lost his arm?
... that Carter Moore Braxton fought for the Confederacy throughout the American Civil War and, according to one report, had seven horses killed under him but avoided any wounds?