American Civil War History Union Confederate American
Civil War North South American Civil War Southern Northern Confederate President Jefferson Davis United States President Abraham
Lincoln Biography
American Civil War
(Grades 6-12)
American Civil War (1861–1865) was a major war between the United
States ("Union") and eleven Southern states ("Confederacy"), which declared that they had a right to secession and formed the Confederate States of America, led by President Jefferson Davis. The Union included free states and border
states and was led by President Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party. Although the border states were under Union control, they supplied the South with tens-of-thousands
of troops.
The South strongly believed in States' Rights (Bill of Rights and the 10th Amendment) according to the United States Constitution and believed that it entitled them to a right of secession. While
the Republicans rejected any right of Southern secession, they also opposed the expansion of slavery into territories owned by the United States (see causes and origins of the American Civil War). Soldiers' motives for fighting in the conflict widely varied.
Fighting commenced on April 12, 1861, when Confederate forces attacked a
United States (Federal) military installation at Fort Sumter in South Carolina, the first state to secede. South Carolina, however, claimed that Fort Sumter was legally within its (territorial) waters.
During the American Civil War, the North generally named a battle after the closest river, stream or creek
and the South tended to name battles after towns or railroad junctions. Hence the Confederate name Manassas after Manassas Junction, and the Union name Bull Run for the stream Bull Run.
During the first year of the Civil War, the Union assumed control of the
border states and established a naval blockade as both sides raised large armies. In 1862, major bloody battles, such as Shiloh and Antietam, were fought causing massive casualties unprecedented in U.S. military history. In September 1862, Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation made the freeing of slaves in the South a war goal, despite opposition from Northern Copperheads who tolerated secession
and slavery. Emancipation reduced the likelihood of intervention from Britain and France on behalf of the Confederacy. In
addition, the goal also allowed the Union to recruit African Americans for reinforcements, a resource that the Confederacy did not exploit until it was too late. The border states and War Democrats
initially opposed emancipation, but gradually accepted it as part of total war needed to save the Union.
By 1864, long-term Union advantages in geography, manpower, industry, finance,
political organization and transportation were overwhelming the Confederacy. Grant fought a number of bloody battles with
Lee in Virginia during the summer of 1864. Lee's defensive tactics resulted in extremely high casualties for Grant's army,
but Lee lost strategically overall as he could not replace his casualties and was forced to retreat into trenches around the
Confederacy's capital, Richmond, Virginia. Meanwhile, General William Sherman, the leader of the Union Military Division of
the Mississippi, captured Atlanta, Georgia, during his March to the Sea. Sherman also destroyed a hundred-mile-wide
swath of Georgia. In 1865 the Confederacy collapsed after Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House. All slaves in the Confederacy were freed by the Emancipation Proclamation, which stipulated that slaves in Confederate-held areas, but not in border states or in Washington, D.C., were free. Slaves
in the border states and Union-controlled areas in the South were freed by state action or by the Thirteenth Amendment, although
slavery effectively ended in the United States in the spring of 1865. The
full restoration of the Union was the work of a highly contentious postwar and aftermath era known as Reconstruction.
Diseases and Napoleonic Linear Tactics, consequently, were the contributing factors for the high casualties during the American Civil War.
More than 10,500 battles and skirmishes occurred during the Civil War; 384 engagements (3.7 percent) were identified as the principal battles
and classified according to their historical significance.
The war produced an estimated 970,000 casualties (3% of the population),
including approximately 620,000 deaths—two-thirds by disease. The war accounted for more casualties than all other U.S. wars
combined. Presently, the causes of the war, the reasons for its outcome, and even the name of the war itself are subjects
of lingering controversy. The main result of the war was the restoration of the Union. Also, approximately 4 million slaves
were freed in 1865. Based on 1860 United States census figures, 8% of all white males aged 13 to 43 died in the war, including
6% in the North and an extraordinary 18% in the South (also see: American Civil War Battles, Casualties, & Statistics and Organization of Union and Confederate Armies)
American Civil War
Date: April 12, 1861 – June 1865 ("Order of Surrendering Confederate Forces") Location: Principally in the Southern United States Result(s): Union victory; Reconstruction; Slavery Abolished
Combatants: United States of America (Union); Confederate States of America (Confederacy)
Theaters
of the American Civil War Union blockade – Eastern – Western – Lower Seaboard – Trans-Mississippi
– Pacific Coast
Strength
(Union)
2,200,000 (estimate)
(Confederate)
1,064,000 (estimate)
Casualties
110,000 Killed in Action
360,000 total dead 275,200 wounded
93,000 Killed in Action
258,000 total dead 137,000+ wounded
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