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We Have Everything You Need To Learn More About The American Civil War. Check Out Our Rich Collection Of History Articles, Battlefield Maps, Biographies, & Other Resources. Visit CivilWar.org

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Select Audiovisual Records at the National Archives Engineers of the 8th New York State Militia in front of a tent, 1861. Ill-B-499. National Archives Identifier: 524918

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Many elements of Civil War scholarship are still hotly debated. The facts on this page are based on the soundest information available.
Q. When was the Civil War fought?

The war began when the Confederates bombarded Union soldiers at Fort Sumter, South Carolina on April 12, 1861. The war ended in Spring, 1865. Robert E. Lee surrendered the last major Confederate army to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse on April 9, 1865. The last battle was fought at Palmito Ranch, Texas, on May 13, 1865.

Q. Where was the Civil War fought?

The Civil War was fought in thousands of different places, from southern Pennsylvania to Texas; from New Mexico to the Florida coast. The majority of the fighting took place in the states of Virginia and Tennessee. The Civil War was also contested on the Atlantic Ocean as far off as the coast of France, the Gulf of Mexico, and the brown water of the Mississippi River and its tributaries.
Battles of the Civil War | Civil War Navies
Q. How many soldiers fought in the Civil War?

At the beginning of the war the Northern states had a combined population of 22 million people. The Southern states had a combined population of about 9 million. This disparity was reflected in the size of the armies in the field. The Union forces outnumbered the Confederates roughly two to one.

Q. How many soldiers died in the Civil War?

Approximately 620,000 soldiers died from combat, accident, starvation, and disease during the Civil War. This number comes from an 1889 study of the war performed by William F. Fox and Thomas Leonard Livermore. Both men fought for the Union. Their estimate is derived from an exhaustive study of the combat and casualty records generated by the armies over five years of fighting. A recent study puts the number of dead as high as 850,000.

Q. How many soldiers died in the Civil War as compared to other American wars?

Roughly 1,264,000 American soldiers have died in the nation's wars--620,000 in the Civil War and 644,000 in all other conflicts. It was only as recently as the Vietnam War that the amount of American deaths in foreign wars eclipsed the number who died in the Civil War.

Q. Who won the Civil War?

The Northern armies were victorious, and the rebellious states returned to the Union.

Q. Who ran in the election of 1860?

The election of 1860 was one of the most unusual in American history. In a four-way race brought on by a split in the Democratic Party, Abraham Lincoln's name did not even appear on the ballot in most Southern states. In the electoral college, Lincoln solidly carried the free states of the Northeast and Northwest. Breckenridge won the slaveholding states, with the exception of Tennessee, Virginia and Kentucky in the Upper South, which went to Bell. Douglas, though he made a solid showing in the popular vote, only took electoral votes from Missouri and New Jersey.

Abraham Lincoln of Illinois, Republican Party: 39.8%
Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, Northern Democratic Party: 29.5%
John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky, Southern Democratic Party: 18.1%
John Bell of Tennessee, Constitutional Union Party: 12.6%

Q. When did the Southern states secede from the Union?

South Carolina - December 20, 1860
Mississippi - January 9, 1861
Florida - January 10, 1861
Alabama - January 11, 1861
Georgia - January 19, 1861
Louisiana - January 26, 1861
Texas - February 1, 1861
Virginia - April 17, 1861
Arkansas - May 6, 1861
North Carolina - May 20, 1861
Tennessee - June 8, 1861

Q. Was secession legal?

No, although it was not ruled illegal until after the war. This was a complex question at the time, with able legal minds to be found arguing both sides, but the United States Supreme Court, in Texas v. White, 74 U.S. 700 (1868), determined that secession was unconstitutional. Chief Justice Salmon Chase wrote in his majority opinion that, "The ordinance of secession...and all the acts of legislature intended to give effect to that ordinance, were absolutely null. They were utterly without operation in law."

Q. What caused the Civil War?

While many still debate the ultimate causes of the Civil War, Pulitzer Prize-winning author James McPherson writes that, "The Civil War started because of uncompromising differences between the free and slave states over the power of the national government to prohibit slavery in the territories that had not yet become states. When Abraham Lincoln won election in 1860 as the first Republican president on a platform pledging to keep slavery out of the territories, seven slave states in the deep South seceded and formed a new nation, the Confederate States of America. The incoming Lincoln administration and most of the Northern people refused to recognize the legitimacy of secession. They feared that it would discredit democracy and create a fatal precedent that would eventually fragment the no-longer United States into several small, squabbling countries."
Learn more about the Trigger Events of the Civil War
Q. What were the bloodiest battles of the Civil War?

Gettysburg--51,000 casualties
Chickamauga--34,624 casualties
Spotsylvania--30,000 casualties
The Wilderness--29,800 casualties
Chancellorsville--24,000 casualties
Shiloh--23,746 casualties
Stones River--23,515 casualties
Antietam--22,717 casualties
Second Manassas--22,180 casualties
Vicksburg--19,233 casualties

Q. What is a casualty?

Too often, people take 'casualty' and 'fatality' to be interchangeable terms. In fact, a casualty is "a military person lost through death, wounds, injury, sickness, internment, or capture or through being missing in action." Essentially, a casualty is any soldier who goes into a fight and does not return fit to take part in the next battle. Many soldiers, especially in the Confederate ranks, became casualties several times: some soldiers were captured multiple times; some were wounded in non-consecutive engagements.

Q. What caused casualties during a battle?

Q. What happened to the dead?

Typically, soldiers were buried where they fell on the battlefield. Others were buried near the hospitals where they died. At most battlefields the dead were exhumed and moved to National or Confederate cemeteries, but because there were so many bodies, and because of the time and effort it took to disinter them, there are undoubtedly thousands if not tens of thousands of Civil War soldiers in unknown battlefield graves.

Q. What happened to prisoners?

More than 400,000 soldiers were captured over the course of the Civil War. In the first years of the conflict, equal numbers of captured troops were regularly exchanged for one another, helping to keep the total number of prisoners manageable for both sides. Over the course of the war, however, that practice faded from use. By the end of the war, the plight of prisoners of war on both sides had become bleak indeed. Thousands of Southerners died in the freezing camp at Elmira, New York, and the camp at Andersonville, Georgia, which held Union prisoners, has become one of the most infamous in the history of war. Nearly as many men died in captivity during the Civil War as died fighting in Vietnam.

Q. How advanced was medicine during the Civil War?

Two thirds of those killed in the Civil War died of disease. Germ theory had not been widely accepted in the medical world at the time of the Civil War and modern antiseptics, which could have greatly reduced the spread of bacteria and the outbreak of disease, did not exist. As George Worthington Adams famously wrote, "The Civil War was fought in the very last years of the medical middle ages." Chloroform, ether and whiskey were the main anesthetics. Still, many survived their wounds and had only the dedicated doctors and nurses and their selfless efforts to thank. Medicine is an ever-evolving science. Unfortunately for those who fought in the Civil War, the technology of warfare had surpassed the technology of health care.

Q. How was the army organized?

The largest military unit is the army, which is sub-divided into smaller commands. Although organization varied between the armies, the largest sub-section of a given army was the corps, which was typically divided into two or more divisions, each composed of two or more brigades, which were each made up of two or more regiments, with each regiment containing roughly ten companies of ideally 100 men (but more typically near 30). Companies themselves were subdivided into platoons and squads before the army finally reached the level of the individual soldier. Armies were sometimes grouped together in "departments" that were defined by geography and operational objective.

Q. How much were soldiers paid?

A white Union private made thirteen dollars a month; his black counterpart made seven dollars until Congress rectified the discrepancy in 1864. A Confederate private ostensibly made eleven dollars a month, but often went long stretches with no pay at all.

Q. What role did African-Americans play in the war effort?

With the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation in September 1862, African-Americans - both free and runaway slaves - came forward to volunteer for the Union cause in substantial numbers. Beginning in October, approximately 180,000 African-Americans, comprising 163 units, served in the U.S. Army, and 18,000 in the Navy. That month, the 1st Kansas Colored Volunteers repulsed a Confederate attack at Island Mound, Missouri. Men of the U.S.C.T. (United States Colored Troops) units went on to distinguish themselves on battlefields east and west - at Port Hudson, Louisiana; Honey Springs, Oklahoma; Fort Wagner, South Carolina; New Market Heights, Virginia. African Americans constituted 10% of the entire Union Army by the end of the war, and nearly 40,000 died over the course of the war.

Q. What did soldiers do in their free time?

When they were not drilling, which made up a considerable portion of their time in camp, soldiers passed the time writing letters, playing games like checkers, dominoes and poker, drinking, smoking, whittling, making music and praying. One soldier summed it up when he wrote to his wife, "Soldiering is 99% boredom and 1% sheer terror."
Learn more about Civil War Winter Encampments
Q. What did soldiers eat?

Civil War soldiers' fare varied substantially from army to army and throughout the course of the war for both sides. For the most part, neither side ate particularly well. Hardtack and coffee were the staples, in addition to salt pork, corn meal and whatever fruits, vegetables and berries could be collected on the march. Many Confederate soldiers were in a state of near-starvation by the war's end.

Q. What was the average soldier's age?

The average Union soldier was 25.8 years old; there is no definite information on the average age of Confederate soldiers, but by the end of the war old men and young boys, who otherwise would have stayed home, were being pressed into service. The average soldier on both sides was a white, native-born, protestant farmer.

Q. Did anybody receive the Medal of Honor in the Civil War?

Yes. There were 1,522 Medals of Honor presented to Northern troops, black and white, during and after the war. The Confederate Army did not have combat medals. Gen. Robert E. Lee explained that the highest honor possible was to be "mentioned in dispatches," in other words, to be included in an officer's report for particularly gallant conduct. John Singleton Mosby, the "Grey Ghost," was mentioned in dispatches more than any other Confederate soldier.

Q. Were there naval battles in the Civil War?

Yes, the North and South waged war on the Atlantic Ocean, in the Gulf of Mexico, and in the rivers of the mainland. Cotton trade with Europe was vital to the Southern war effort, which led Union General-in-Chief Winfield Scott to order a strangling blockade known as the "Anaconda Plan." While Southern blockade runners tested this screen, engineers were inventing the first ironclad warships the world had ever seen. On the rivers, gunboats, shore batteries, and island fortresses entered the battle as both sides fought for control of inland arteries that were essential to the fast transport of men and material. The Civil War at sea, mostly notably with the development of the ironclads, changed the trajectory of naval warfare around the globe.

Q. What was the range of Civil War artillery?

Smoothbore cannons, such as the 12-pounder Napoleon, had a range of around three-quarters of a mile; rifled cannons, such as the 10-pounder Parrott, had a range of one and a half miles, or about double that of a smoothbore. Some larger cannons and imported pieces could fire even farther.

Q. How did the draft work?

The Confederacy instituted the first draft in American history in April of 1862. It was clear that the South, with a total population of 9 million (including 4 million slaves), would have to muster all of its manpower to repel the North, which had an 1860 population of around 22 million. The Confederate draft exempted those who owned twenty slaves or more, however, arousing resentment amongst the poor whites who constituted the vast majority of the army. Abraham Lincoln instituted a draft on the Northern states a year later, likewise calling on all able-bodied 18-35 year old men to serve. There were exemptions in the North, too, if those drafted could pay a significant fee or provide a substitute.

Q. Why are there alternate names for Civil War battles?

Union commanders typically named battles after the nearest river or creek. Confederates typically named battles after the nearest city or town. But these rules did not always apply; they were highly dependent on the names employed by the victors, the public and the media.

Q. Are there photographs of Civil War battles?

Photography was a new art form when the Civil War broke out. The cameras and chemicals available at the time were too unwieldy and unstable to accommodate the chaos of a battlefield. Nevertheless, a few photographs of Civil War combat do exist, including images of artillery bombardments, gunboat broadsides, and battle smoke at Nashville and Fredericksburg. Thousands of other Civil War photographs can be found online at the Library of Congress.

Q. Were there black Confederate soldiers?

Slaves and free blacks were present in the Confederate lines as hand servants and manual laborers. On March 13, 1865, the Confederate Congress passed a law to allow black men to serve in combat roles, with the provision "that nothing in this act shall be construed to authorize a change in the relation which said slaves shall bear toward their owners," i.e. that black soldiers would still be slaves. On March 14, 1865 the Confederate military issued General Orders No. 14, which provided for the raising of black combat regiments, but there is no official military documentation that indicates these orders were carried out or that any black soldiers were ever properly enlisted in the Confederate army. There are a few photographs of blacks in Confederate uniforms, but these appear to be hoaxes.
Learn more about the truths and legends concerning "Black Confederates"
Q. What are some of the best Civil War books?

Battle Cry of Freedom by James McPherson -- Considered by many to be the finest single-volume history of the Civil War era.

A Stillness at Appomattox by Bruce Catton -- The third and final volume of Catton's critically-acclaimed Civil War trilogy; winner of the Pulitzer Prize.

The Civil War: A Narrative by Shelby Foote -- Three volumes, three thousand pages and more than a million words.

The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara -- The best Civil War novel of the 20th century and the inspiration behind Ken Burns' epic documentary.

Company Aytch by Sam Watkins -- An illuminating Confederate memoir by a Tennessean who fought practically everywhere in the Western theater.

Q. How much battlefield land has the Civil War Trust saved?

The Civil War Trust has saved tens of thousands of acres of precious land. Check out our Saved Lands Map to learn more!

Q. How can I get involved in Civil War battlefield preservation?

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Many elements of Civil War scholarship are still hotly debated. The facts on this page are based on the soundest information available. The war began when the Confederates bombarded Union soldiers at Fort Sumter, South Carolina on April 12, 1861. The war ended in Spring, 1865. Robert E.

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Civil War Facts

Location

Eastern Theater, Western Theater, Trans-Mississippi, Gulf Coast, Sioux Uprising

Dates

1861-1865

Soldiers Engaged

Union: over 2,100,000

Confederate: over 1,000,000

Civil War Casualties

Union: over 350,000

Confederate: over 250,000

See Details Of Civil War Casualties

Outcome

Union Victory

Civil War Pictures

The Civil War was the first war that was widely photographed. Many American Civil War images, pictures, and photos have survived.

See our Civil War Pictures

Civil War Maps

The Civil War made wide use of battle maps.

View our Civil War Maps

Civil War Timeline

See a timeline of events of the Civil War from 1861-1865. See events by year and important Civil War dates.

View our Civil War Timeline

Civil War Battlefields

The battlefields of the Civil War crossed the nation and made famous many previously unknown towns, crossroads, and farms like Antietam Creek, Shiloh and Gettysburg.

View more Civil War Battlefields

More Civil War Facts

To view more Civil War facts and FAQs, please view our Civil War Facts page

Civil War Articles

Explore articles from the History Net archives about the Civil War

" See all American Civil War Articles

Civil War Summary: The American Civil War, 1861-1865, resulted from long-standing sectional differences and questions not fully resolved when the United States Constitution was ratified in 1789, primarily the issue of slavery and states rights. With the defeat of the Southern Confederacy and the subsequent passage of the XIII, XIV, and XV amendments to the Constitution, the Civil War's lasting effects include abolishing the institution of slavery in America and firmly redefining the United States as a single, indivisible nation rather than a loosely bound collection of independent states.

Milestones

It was a war that saw many "firsts" that included America's first income tax, the first battle between ironclad ships, the first extensive use of black soldiers and sailors in U.S. service, the first use of quinine to treat typhoid fever, America's first military draft, and many others. There were advances in medical treatment, military tactics, and the chaplain service. Over the course of the Civil War weapons ranged from obsolete flintlocks to state-of-the-art repeaters. During the Civil War, women took on new roles, including running farms and plantations and spying; some disguised themselves as men and fought in battle. All of the nation's ethnic groups participated in the war, including Irish, Germans, American Indians, Jews, Chinese, Hispanics, etc.

Other Names for the Civil War

Northerners have also called the Civil War the War to Preserve the Union, the War of the Rebellion (War of the Southern Rebellion), and the War to Make Men Free. Southerners may refer to it as the War Between the States or the War of Northern Aggression. In the decades following the conflict, those who did not wish to upset adherents of either side simply called it The Late Unpleasantness. It is also known as Mr. Lincoln's War and, less commonly, as Mr. Davis' War.

Troop Strength and Casualties

Between April 1861 and April 1865, an estimated 1.5 million troops joined the war on the side of the Union and approximately 1.2 million went into Confederate service. An estimated total of 785,000-1,000,000 were killed in action or died of disease. More than twice that number were wounded but survived at least long enough to muster out. Casualties of the Civil War cannot be calculated exactly, due to missing records (especially on the Southern side) and the inability to determine exactly how many combatants died from wounds, drug addiction, or other war-related causes after leaving the service. An untold number of civilians also perished, primarily from disease as entire towns became hospitals.

Naval Battles

Most naval actions occurred on rivers and inlets or in harbors, and include history's first clash between two ironclads, the USS Monitor and CSS Virginia (a captured and converted ship formerly called the Merrimac), at Hampton Roads, Virginia, on March 9, 1862. Other actions include the Battle of Memphis (1862), Charleston Harbor (1863), and Mobile Bay (1864), and the naval sieges of Vicksburg in 1862 and again in 1863. The most famous clash between ocean-going warships was the duel between USS Kearsarge and CSS Alabama off Cherbourg, France, June 19, 1864. Throughout the war, the Union had a decided advantage in both numbers and quality of naval vessels.

The War Between The States Begins

On April 10, 1861, knowing that resupplies were on their way from the North to the federal garrison at Fort Sumter in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina, provisional Confederate forces in the city demanded the fort's surrender. The fort's commander, Major Robert Anderson, refused. On April 12 the Confederates opened fire with cannon. At 2:30 p.m. the following day, Major Anderson surrendered.

On April 15, Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to put down the Southern rebellion, a move that prompted Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas and North Carolina to reverse themselves and vote in favor of secession. (Most of the western section of Virginia rejected the secession vote and broke away, ultimately forming a new, Union-loyal state, West Virginia.)

The United States had always maintained only a small professional army; the nation's founders had feared a Napoleon-esque leader might rise up and use a large army to overthrow the government and make himself a dictator. Many graduates of the U.S. Army's military academy, West Point, resigned their commissions in order to fight for the South-this was especially true in the cavalry arm, but no members of the artillery "went South." The Lincoln Administration had to rely on large numbers of volunteers from the states and territories.

In Richmond, Virginia, the President of the Confederate States of America, Jefferson Davis, faced a similar problem in raising and equipping armies. Neither side expected a war of long duration. Volunteers were asked to serve for 90 days. "One big battle, and it'll be over," was the commonly expressed belief on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line. Southerners thought Northerners too weak and cowardly to fight. Northerners thought a dependence upon slave labor had rendered Southerners too weak both physically and morally to present a serious battlefield threat. Both sides were due for a rude awakening.

The Challenges of North and South

To win the war would require Lincoln's armies and navy to subdue an area from the East Coast to the Rio Grande, from the Mason-Dixon Line to the Gulf of Mexico. To prevent a Northern victory, the South would have to defend that same large area, but with a smaller population and less industry than the North could ultimately bring to bear. A short war would favor the South, a long one the North.

Theaters of War

Actions in the war were divided into the Eastern Theater, primarily comprised of Washington, D.C., Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and the coast of North Carolina. The Atlantic Coast farther south was the Lower Seaboard Theater. The Western Theater began west of the Alleghenies (West Virginia excepted) and continued to the Mississippi River, but it also included the interior of the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida. Events farther west are considered to have occurred in the Trans-Mississippi Theater and the Far West.

1861

The first inland clash between significant bodies of troops occurred on the morning of June 3, 1861, when 3,000 Union volunteers surprised 800 Confederates at Philippi in (West) Virginia. Lasting less than half an hour, the affair would barely qualify as a skirmish later in the war, but the Union victory there and subsequent ones in the region elevated the reputation of Major General George B. McClellan, commander of the Department of the Ohio.

The first real battle took place July 21, 1861, on the hills around Bull Run creek outside Manassas, Virginia, a railroad junction some 30 miles south of the Northern capital at Washington City (Washington, D.C.) and about 90 miles north of the Confederate capital at Richmond on July. It is known as the First Battle of Bull Run (Northern name) or the First Battle of Manassas (Southern name). During the war, the North named battles for the nearest body of water, and the South used the name of the nearest town.

The Union army made progress early in the battle, but Confederate reinforcements arrived late in the day from the Shenandoah Valley and routed the Federals. The unfortunate Union commander, Irvin McDowell, was made the scapegoat and was replaced with an officer who had some victories to his credit: McClellan.

On September 10 a Union victory at Carnifax Ferry in the Big Kanawha Valley of (West) Virginia virtually ended Confederate control in most of the western counties, although there would be raids and guerrilla warfare there. A successful naval invasion of North Carolina took place in August.

The Western Theater saw only minor skirmishing. Kentucky was attempting to remain neutral and had vowed to take sides against whichever side first moved troops into it. That was the Confederacy, which felt compelled to establish Mississippi River forts and establish camps within the state to repel any attempted Union move south.

Near Springfield, Missouri, in the Trans-Mississippi, the South won a major battle on August 10, 1861. The Battle of Wilson's Creek, also known as the Battle of Oak Hills, saw some 12,000 Confederates defeat less than 5,500 Union soldiers and take control of southwestern Missouri, but the Southerners did not immediately pursue northward. The Union commander, Nathaniel Lyon, was killed, the first Federal general to die in action during the war. The South had already lost Brigadier General Robert S. Garnett in a skirmish at Carrick's Ford, (West) Virginia, and Brigadier General Bernard E. Bee at First Manassas. After Wilson's Creek, Confederate forces won another Missouri victory at the First Battle of Lexington, September 13-20, 1861.

During the fall and winter, both sides swelled their ranks, trained troops, and obtained additional weapons, food and equipment, and horses and mules for the coming year's campaigns.

1862

If 1861 had disabused Americans north and south of the notion this would be a short war, 1862 showed how terrible its cost in human life would be, beginning with the two bloody days of the Battle of Shiloh in Tennessee and continuing through a series of battles in Virginia and America's bloodiest single day, the Battle of Antietam in Maryland.

The year saw the first clash between ironclad warships, in the Battle of Hampton Roads. Lincoln announced his Emancipation Proclamation. The South found two heroes: Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, for his Shenandoah Valley Campaign, and Robert E. Lee, who took command of the main Confederate army. Lincoln would be hard-pressed to find a commander Lee could not out-general. Farther south along the Atlantic Coast, Federals captured territory in North and South Carolina and Georgia, but lost a chance to shorten the war when they were turned back at the Battle of Secessionville, South Carolina.

In the Western Theater, Union forces made deep penetrations into Dixie, beginning the year along the Ohio River and finishing it in control of Middle and West Tennessee, with outposts in Mississippi. Even New Orleans was under the Stars and Stripes again.

Beyond the Mississippi, initial Confederate successes in New Mexico territory were nullified by a defeat at Glorietta Pass. Texans lynched 50 Unionists in what became known as the Great Hanging at Gainesville and attacked German immigrants trying to leave the state, executing nine of the wounded after the Battle of the Nueces.

In August, starving Sioux Indians in Minnesota, angered because they'd not received badly needed payments promised by their treaty, began an uprising that killed at least 113 white men, women and children. Three hundred Sioux were sentenced to hang, but Lincoln cut that number to 38-still the largest mass execution in U.S. history.

Antietam and Shiloh

If 1861 had disabused Americans north and south of the notion this would be a short war, 1862 showed how terrible its cost in human life would be, beginning with the two bloody days of the Battle of Shiloh in Tennessee and continuing through a series of battles in Virginia and America's bloodiest single day, the Battle of Antietam in Maryland. September saw simultaneous Confederate invasions into Maryland and Kentucky in September. Neither, however, was long lived.

The year 1862 ended-and the new year would begin-with another bloodbath, on the banks of Stones River outside Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Overall, the scales were still nearly balanced between the two sides in their struggle to restore the Union or to establish a Southern Confederacy.

1863

The tide of war shifted noticeably in favor of the Union in 1863, despite a brilliant victory by Robert E. Lee in the Battle of Chancellorsville, a battle that cost the life of his daring lieutenant Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson. Lee then suffered a major defeat at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, in early July. The victor, George Gordon Meade, did not pursue aggressively, and the Confederate "Gray Fox" escaped to fight another day. The two antagonists met again in November in a confused, inconclusive affair known as the Mine Run Campaign.

Battle of Chancellorsville

On April 17, the Army of the Potomac, under yet another commander, Maj. Gen. Joseph "Fighting Joe" Hooker, attempted to outflank Lee at Fredericksburg by crossing the Rappahannock and Rapidan rivers above the town. In response, Lee divided his force, leaving part of it to guard the river at Fredericksburg. On April 30, Hooker and Lee collided near a mansion called Chancellorsville in a densely thicketed area of woods known as The Wilderness. After a brilliant flank attack that disorganized Hooker's right, Lt. Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson was mortally wounded by his own men in the darkness. He died May 10. Lee, learning the Federals had captured Fredericksburg, divided his force again and defeated them at Salem Church. Hooker gave up the campaign and withdrew on the night of May 5-6. The Battle of Chancellorsville is regarded as Lee's most brilliant victory. Read more about the Battle of Chancellorsville.

Vicksburg, Chickamauga, and Chattanooga

The "Confederate Gibraltar," Vicksburg, Mississippi, fell to Ulysses S. Grant on July 4 after a 47-day siege. Confederates won their greatest victory in the Western Theater at the Battle of Chickamauga in September, but failed to capitalize on it and in late November were routed from the hills above Chattanooga, opening the road to Atlanta for the Union's Western armies. Grant was placed in command of all Western armies, a prelude to an even greater promotion that would come the following spring.

Two massacres marked 1863. In response to raids by Shoshoni Indians in the Idaho Territory of the far northwest, U.S. troops under Col. Patrick E. Connor attacked the camp of Chief Bear Hunter on January 29. A number of Shoshoni women, children and old men were killed along with Hunting Bear's warriors in the Bear River Massacre (Massacre at Boa Ogoi). On August 21, Confederate guerrillas under Captain William C. Quantrill sacked and burned Lawrence, Kansas, a center for pro-Union, anti-slavery Jayhawkers and Redlegs, killing 150-200 men and boys.

Gettysburg

In mid-June, Lee led his Army of Northern Virginia into Maryland and Pennsylvania in his second invasion of the North, hoping to take pressure off Virginia's farms during the growing season and seeking a victory on Northern soil. His men encountered the Army of the Potomac, now under George Gordon Meade, at a crossroads town in southeastern Pennsylvania on July 1. Capturing the town but failing to take the high ground around it, Lee assailed the Union flanks the next day. The fighting on the Union left was particularly costly to both sides, memorializing Little and Big Round Top, Devil's Den, the each Orchard and the Wheatfield. On the right, the Confederates nearly broke through on Culp's and Cemetery hills before being repulsed. On July 3, Lee made perhaps his greatest mistake of the war, ordering a frontal attack across open ground against the Union center on Cemetery Ridge. Known as "Pickett's Charge" for the commander of the largest Confederate division involved, George Pickett, the attack failed, leaving thousands of Southern soldiers dead and wounded. On Independence Day, a wagon train of wounded over 14 miles long began Lee's retreat. With the Confederate's loss of Vicksburg, Mississippi, that same day, July 4, 1863, is often described as the turning point of the Civil War. Read more about the Battle Of Gettysburg.

The year also saw an event unique in American history. Counties of western Virginia had refused to leave the Union when the state seceded in 1861. On June 20, 1863, West Virginia entered the Union as the 35th state, although the U.S. Constitution requires a mother state's permission before a new state can be carved out of it.

At the end of 1863, both sides still had significant forces, and the Confederates enjoyed good defensive terrain in Virginia and North Georgia. If they could inflict enough losses on their Northern opponents, they might win at the ballot box what they could not on the field of battle: Lincoln was vulnerable and in the 1864 elections might be replaced by a Democrat who would make peace with the Confederacy.

1864

Since the beginning of the war, Lincoln had sought in vain for a general who understood that destroying the Confederate armies in Virginia was more important than capturing Richmond, and who wouldn't turn back in the face of a defeat in battle. He believed he'd found that man in Ulysses S. Grant, who was put in charge of all Union armies in March 1864. "Unconditional Surrender" Grant proved Lincoln right, but the cost in lives led many, including the president's wife, Mary, to call the general a "butcher."

The Wilderness

Following his promotion, Grant attached himself to the North's largest army, the Army of the Potomac, while leaving George Gordon Meade, the victor of Gettysburg, in command of that force. On May 2, the Army of the Potomac crossed Virginia's Rapidan River. Three days later, it collided with Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia in a wooded area thick with underbrush, known as The Wilderness, near the old Chancellorsville battlefield, site of Lee's most brilliant victory. There was no such clear-cut outcome this time. After two blood-soaked days of close-quarters fighting, Grant maneuvered his army to outflank Lee's right. Lee anticipated the move, and the two armies tore at each other again for two weeks in May around Spotsylvania Courthouse. Again, Grant sidestepped, and again Lee met him in the Battle of the North Anna. Grant intended to "fight it out along this line if it takes all summer," and the two armies clashed again and again, moving ever southward. At Cold Harbor, Grant made one of the worst mistakes of his career, suffering 7,000 casualties within 20 minutes while Lee's losses were negligible. Eventually, the Federals maneuvered their opponents so close to Richmond and Petersburg-a town essential to the Confederates' supply line-that Lee had to give up his ability to maneuver and settle into trench warfare. The siege of Richmond and Petersburg had begun. Read more about the Battle Of The Wilderness

Petersburg and Richmond

On July 30, the Union exploded a mine beneath a portion of the Confederate works around Petersburg. A tardy advance by a large number of Union soldiers into the 30-foot-deep crater it created allowed the Southerners time to recover. They poured fired into the densely packed Federals; eventually, the fighting was hand-to-hand. Angered by the blast and the presence of black troops, the Confederates gave no quarter and the Battle of the Crater resulted in 4,000 Union casualties for no gain. Read more about the Battle Of Petersburg

Although much of Lee's army was tied down in the defense of Richmond and Petersburg, other portions resisted Union advances in the Shenandoah Valley. After a victory at Lynchburg in June, Jubal A. Early took his Army of the Valley across the Potomac and boldly marched on the Northern capital at Washington, D.C. A desperate delaying action on July 9 at Monocacy, Maryland, by an outnumbered force under Lew Wallace-the future author of Ben Hur-bought the capital time to prepare. When Early attacked Fort Stevens outside the city on July 11-12, President and Mrs. Lincoln came out to watch the fighting. After Early retired back down the Shenandoah Valley, Grant ordered Philip Sheridan to lay waste to the Valley. On October 9, Early surprised Sheridan's camps on Cedar Creek near Winchester. Sheridan galloped to the sound of the guns, arriving in time to halt the Union rout and crushed the Confederates, effectively ending Early's ability to take offensive actions to protect the Valley.

When Grant went east his friend and subordinate, William Tecumseh Sherman, took command of the armies of the Tennessee and the Cumberland at Chattanooga. While Grant bludgeoned and sidestepped his way toward Richmond, Sherman was slugging through the mountains of North Georgia. There, Confederate general Joseph Johnston made superb use of terrain to slow the Federal advance. After a series of clashes followed by maneuvers around Johnston's defenses, Sherman lost patience and ordered a frontal assault on Kennesaw Mountain that cost 3,000 Union lives compared with 1,000 for the Confederates. But gradually, his armies closed in on the rail center of Atlanta. Finally, on September 2, Sherman's men entered Atlanta after the Confederate army, now under the command of John Bell Hood, evacuated the town, setting fire to it before leaving.

The capture of Atlanta was one of the most crucial events of the war. The South's last remaining hope was that war-weary Northern voters might turn Lincoln out of the White House in the November elections and replace him with a Peace Democrat. The Democrats had nominated George B. McClellan, the former commander of the Army of the Potomac, as their candidate. The party made many missteps during the campaign, and for the first time ever, the North allowed soldiers to vote in the field. Both of those contributed to Lincoln winning a second term, but had Sherman not taken Atlanta, the long casualty rolls from Grant's Overland Campaign and the on-going stalemate around the Confederate capital might have been enough to convince Northerners to "give peace a chance" and vote against Lincoln and the war.

Sherman's March To The Sea

Sherman left Atlanta November 15 on his march to the sea. Along the way, he intended to "make Georgia howl," letting his men live off the land and burning all they couldn't take with them. He reached Savannah by Christmas, leaving a 60-mile wide swath of ashes, wrecked railroads and utter destruction behind him. Read more about Sherman's March To The Sea

In an attempt to pull Sherman back into Tennessee, John Bell Hood swung the Army of Tennessee through upper Alabama and struck north for Nashville. Sherman detached George Thomas and the Army of the Cumberland to deal with him. At the town of Franklin, Hood ordered frontal assaults that after five hours of intense fighting, left his army in tatters; five generals were dead. Hood's reduced force then besieged Nashville-the most heavily fortified city in America after Washington, D.C. After an ice storm melted, Thomas came out of his works and finished the job of shattering the Confederate army. Its remnants withdrew to Tupelo, Mississippi.

In the spring of 1864, Nathan Bedford Forrest began an expedition that reached Paducah, Kentucky, on the Ohio River before rampaging against Federal installations in West Tennessee. Stories that his men massacred Union soldiers, particularly members of the United States Colored Troops captured at Fort Pillow, a poorly designed Mississippi River fort north of Memphis, gained instant credence in the North, but two official inquiries were unable to reach a conclusion about what had actually happened. At New Johnsonville, Tennessee, Forrest gained the distinction of commanding the only cavalry group ever to defeat gunboats, when they sunk or frightened crews into scuttling four ships.

On the Gulf Coast of Alabama on August 5, Admiral David G. Farragut steamed into the Battle of Mobile Bay with 18 ships. Tradition has it that when he was warned about torpedoes (mines) in the bay he responded, "Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!" After Farragut's ships defeated the unfinished ironclad CSS Tennessee, Union infantry captured forts Gaines and Morgan, sealing off the mouth of the bay, but the city of Mobile remained defiant.

By the end of 1864, the Confederacy had nothing left but courage and tenacity. With Lincoln's re-election, no viable hope remained for a negotiated peace. The smoke rising above Georgia and the thousands of bodies strung out from Nashville to Atlanta to Petersburg and the gates of Washington said there would be no military victory. Legislators of North Carolina pressed Jefferson Davis to make peace before their state suffered Georgia's fate but to no avail. The South would fight on, no matter cost.

1865

The noose around the Confederacy was strangling it. In mid-January Fort Fisher in North Carolina fell to a combined land and naval force. The port city of Wilmington followed a month later. Sherman's bummers were advancing north. When they reached South Carolina, where the rebellion had begun, any bit of restraint they may have shown elsewhere was pitched aside. By February 20, the state capital of Columbia was captured; fires destroyed much of the city, but whether they were set deliberately by Sherman's troops or by retreating Confederates or accidentally by Union soldiers celebrating with too much alcohol has been long debated. Sherman's men continued on through North Carolina, setting fire to the pine forests that played an important role in the state's economy. What remained of the Confederate forces, once more under the command of Joseph Johnston, was far too small to stop the juggernaut.

Outside Petersburg, Virginia, Lee launched a costly failed attack against the besiegers' Fort Steadman on March 25. When Federals under Phil Sheridan captured the crossroads at Five Forks, cutting Lee's supply line, he withdrew from the Petersburg-Richmond trenches and headed southwest, hoping to link up with Johnston coming up from the south. Before leaving Richmond, the Confederates set fire to the town. On April 9, at Appomattox Courthouse, after discovering Federals had beaten him to a supply cache, he surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Grant. Despite his nickname of "Unconditional Surrender" Grant and his policy of waging total war against the South to end the rebellion, Grant offered generous terms, realizing this surrender would virtually end the war.

Johnston surrendered to Sherman at Bentonville, North Carolina, on April 26. Sherman extended even more generous terms than Grant had but endured the embarrassment of having to go back to Johnston with harsher conditions. Between Lee and Johnston's surrenders, an event had occurred that reduced the North's compassion toward their proud, defeated enemies.

Lincoln Assassinated

On the night of April 14, John Wilkes Booth, a staunchly pro-slavery Confederate sympathizer, slipped into the President's Box at Ford's Theater in Washington and fired a single bullet into the back of Abraham Lincoln's head. Lincoln died the next morning, the first American president to be assassinated. Booth was shot weeks later while trying to escape from a barn in Virginia. All those captured who were believed to be his co-conspirators in the plot were hanged, including Mary Surratt, who owned the boarding house where the plotters met.

Jefferson Davis, who had escaped Richmond, was captured in Georgia on May 10 and imprisoned for two years at Fortress Monroe, Virginia, before being released on $100,000 bond.

One after another, the remaining Confederate forces surrendered. Their last army in the field was surrendered by Cherokee Chief Stand Watie in Indian Territory (Oklahoma) on June 23.

The Last Battle

The last land battle, a Confederate victory, occurred May 12-13 at Palmito (or Palmetto) Ranch in south Texas, where word of Lee's surrender had not yet been received. Far across the Atlantic on November 6, 1865, the sea raider CSS Shenandoah surrendered to a British captain; had the ship's crew surrendered in America, they risked hanging as pirates.

On Christmas Day, 1868, President Andrew Johnson issued an amnesty proclamation to all former Confederates, including Jefferson Davis. Only one Confederate was executed, Henry Wirtz, commander of the notorious prison camp at Andersonville. Officially known as Fort Sumter, Andersonville was the largest prison camp in the south and was infamous for its ill treatment of Union prisoners who lacked adequate food and medicine. Southerners have long protested that the death rate in Northern prison camps was higher than that of Andersonville, and Wirtz should not have been punished for war crimes. Learn more about the Andersonville Prison Camp

Generals

Several hundred generals were commissioned during the American Civil War in the Union and Confederate armies. These men led the troops into the battles that would ultimately decide the outcome of the war. Prominent Civil War Generals include:
Confederate Generals Union Generals:
Weapons

Weapons were the instruments of war in the Civil War and often played a critical role in deciding many battles. Great advances came in the rifle, muskets, artillery, cannon and bullets, including the Minie Ball. Weapons used in the Civil War include:
Civil War cannon Civil War guns Civil War swords
Confederacy

The Confederacy is the name commonly given to the Confederate States of American which existed from 1860-1865 throughout the Civil War. It was started when southern states seceded from the Union after the election of Abraham Lincoln. The Confederate President was Jefferson Davis.

Civil War Flags

There were many different flags used during the Civil War. On the Union side, there were both 33 star flags and 34 star flags after Kansas was admitted to the Union in 1861. On the Confederate side, there were three national flags as well as the more recognizable confederate battle flag. Additionally, each corps, divisions, brigades, regiments, and even individual companies carried their own unique flags.

Reconstruction

The Reconstruction Period generally refers to the period just after the Civil War, from 1865 to 1877. Reconstruction period was as harsh as the war on the Southern states and that they never fully regained their standing. The period of Reconstruction was important to build equal standing among the states and to regain trust.

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Eastern Theater, Western Theater, Trans-Mississippi, Gulf Coast, Sioux Uprising 1861-1865 Union: over 2,100,000 Confederate: over 1,000,000 Union: over 350,000 Confederate: over 250,000 See Details Of Civil War Casualties Union Victory The Civil War was the first war that was widely photographed. Many American Civil War images, pictures, and photos have survived.

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The Civil War was America's bloodiest and most divisive conflict, pitting the Union Army against the Confederate States of America. The war resulted in the deaths of more than 620,000 people, with millions more injured and the South left in ruins.

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Prelude to 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.

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.

With war upon the land, President Lincoln called for 75,000 militiamen to serve for three months. He proclaimed a naval blockade of the Confederate states, although he insisted that they did not legally constitute a sovereign country but were instead states in rebellion. He also directed the secretary of the treasury to advance $2 million to assist in the raising of troops, and he suspended the writ of habeas corpus, first along the East Coast and ultimately throughout the country. The Confederate government had previously authorized a call for 100,000 soldiers for at least six months' service, and this figure was soon increased to 400,000.
Jennifer L. Weber

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American Civil War | History, Summary, Dates, Causes, Map, Timeline, Battles, Significance, & Facts

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American Civil War, four-year war (1861-65) fought between the United States and 11 Southern states that seceded to form the Confederate States of America. It arose out of disputes over slavery and states' rights. When antislavery candidate Abraham Lincoln was elected president (1860), the Southern states seceded.

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Contents

1. Causes of the Civil War

2. Outbreak of the Civil War (1861)

3. The Civil War in Virginia (1862)

4. After the Emancipation Proclamation (1863-4)

5. Toward a Union Victory (1864-65)

6. PHOTO GALLERIES

The Civil War in the United States began in 1861, after decades of simmering tensions between northern and southern states over slavery, states' rights and westward expansion. The election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 caused seven southern states to secede and form the Confederate States of America; four more states soon joined them. The War Between the States, as the Civil War was also known, ended in Confederate surrender in 1865. The conflict was the costliest and deadliest war ever fought on American soil, with some 620,000 of 2.4 million soldiers killed, millions more injured and much of the South left in ruin.
WATCH: Civil War Journal on HISTORY Vault
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.

In the North, manufacturing and industry was well established, and agriculture was mostly limited to small-scale farms, while the South's economy was based on a system of large-scale farming that depended on the labor of Black enslaved people to grow certain crops, especially cotton and tobacco.

Growing abolitionist sentiment in the North after the 1830s and northern opposition to slavery's extension into the new western territories led many southerners to fear that the existence of slavery in America -and thus the backbone of their economy-was in danger.

Did you know? Confederate General Thomas Jonathan Jackson earned his famous nickname, "Stonewall," from his steadfast defensive efforts in the First Battle of Bull Run (First Manassas). At Chancellorsville, Jackson was shot by one of his own men, who mistook him for Union cavalry. His arm was amputated, and he died from pneumonia eight days later.

In 1854, the U.S. Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which essentially opened all new territories to slavery by asserting the rule of popular sovereignty over congressional edict. Pro- and anti-slavery forces struggled violently in " Bleeding Kansas," while opposition to the act in the North led to the formation of the Republican Party, a new political entity based on the principle of opposing slavery's extension into the western territories. After the Supreme Court's ruling in the Dred Scott case (1857) confirmed the legality of slavery in the territories, the abolitionist John Brown's raid at Harper's Ferry in 1859 convinced more and more southerners that their northern neighbors were bent on the destruction of the "peculiar institution" that sustained them. Abraham Lincoln's election in November 1860 was the final straw, and within three months seven southern states- South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas -had seceded from the United States.
EXPLORE: Ulysses S. Grant: An Interactive Map of His Key Civil War Battles
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. On April 12, after Lincoln ordered a fleet to resupply Sumter, Confederate artillery fired the first shots of the Civil War. Sumter's commander, Major Robert Anderson, surrendered after less than two days of bombardment, leaving the fort in the hands of Confederate forces under Pierre G.T. Beauregard. Four more southern states- Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina and Tennessee -joined the Confederacy after Fort Sumter. Border slave states like Missouri, Kentucky and Maryland did not secede, but there was much Confederate sympathy among their citizens.

Though on the surface the Civil War may have seemed a lopsided conflict, with the 23 states of the Union enjoying an enormous advantage in population, manufacturing (including arms production) and railroad construction, the Confederates had a strong military tradition, along with some of the best soldiers and commanders in the nation. They also had a cause they believed in: preserving their long-held traditions and institutions, chief among these being slavery.

In the First Battle of Bull Run (known in the South as First Manassas) on July 21, 1861, 35,000 Confederate soldiers under the command of Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson forced a greater number of Union forces (or Federals) to retreat towards Washington, D.C., dashing any hopes of a quick Union victory and leading Lincoln to call for 500,000 more recruits. In fact, both sides' initial call for troops had to be widened after it became clear that the war would not be a limited or short conflict.

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. In the spring of 1862, McClellan finally led his Army of the Potomac up the peninsula between the York and James Rivers, capturing Yorktown on May 4. The combined forces of Robert E. Lee and Jackson successfully drove back McClellan's army in the Seven Days' Battles (June 25-July 1), and a cautious McClellan called for yet more reinforcements in order to move against Richmond. Lincoln refused, and instead withdrew the Army of the Potomac to Washington. By mid-1862, McClellan had been replaced as Union general-in-chief by Henry W. Halleck, though he remained in command of the Army of the Potomac.

Lee then moved his troops northwards and split his men, sending Jackson to meet Pope's forces near Manassas, while Lee himself moved separately with the second half of the army. On August 29, Union troops led by John Pope struck Jackson's forces in the Second Battle of Bull Run (Second Manassas). The next day, Lee hit the Federal left flank with a massive assault, driving Pope's men back towards Washington. On the heels of his victory at Manassas, Lee began the first Confederate invasion of the North. Despite contradictory orders from Lincoln and Halleck, McClellan was able to reorganize his army and strike at Lee on September 14 in Maryland, driving the Confederates back to a defensive position along Antietam Creek, near Sharpsburg.

On September 17, the Army of the Potomac hit Lee's forces (reinforced by Jackson's) in what became the war's bloodiest single day of fighting. Total casualties at the Battle of Antietam (also known as the Battle of Sharpsburg) numbered 12,410 of some 69,000 troops on the Union side, and 13,724 of around 52,000 for the Confederates. The Union victory at Antietam would prove decisive, as it halted the Confederate advance in Maryland and forced Lee to retreat into Virginia. Still, McClellan's failure to pursue his advantage earned him the scorn of Lincoln and Halleck, who removed him from command in favor of Ambrose E. Burnside. Burnside's assault on Lee's troops near Fredericksburg on December 13 ended in heavy Union casualties and a Confederate victory; he was promptly replaced by Joseph "Fighting Joe" Hooker, and both armies settled into winter quarters across the Rappahannock River from each other.

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. He justified his decision as a wartime measure, and did not go so far as to free the enslaved people in the border states loyal to the Union. Still, the Emancipation Proclamation deprived the Confederacy of the bulk of its labor forces and put international public opinion strongly on the Union side. Some 186,000 Black Civil War soldiers would join the Union Army by the time the war ended in 1865, and 38,000 lost their lives.

In the spring of 1863, Hooker's plans for a Union offensive were thwarted by a surprise attack by the bulk of Lee's forces on May 1, whereupon Hooker pulled his men back to Chancellorsville. The Confederates gained a costly victory in the Battle of Chancellorsville, suffering 13,000 casualties (around 22 percent of their troops); the Union lost 17,000 men (15 percent). Lee launched another invasion of the North in June, attacking Union forces commanded by General George Meade on July 1 near Gettysburg, in southern Pennsylvania. Over three days of fierce fighting, the Confederates were unable to push through the Union center, and suffered casualties of close to 60 percent.

Meade failed to counterattack, however, and Lee's remaining forces were able to escape into Virginia, ending the last Confederate invasion of the North. Also in July 1863, Union forces under Ulysses S. Grant took Vicksburg (Mississippi) in the Siege of Vicksburg, a victory that would prove to be the turning point of the war in the western theater. After a Confederate victory at Chickamauga Creek, Georgia, just south of Chattanooga, Tennessee, in September, Lincoln expanded Grant's command, and he led a reinforced Federal army (including two corps from the Army of the Potomac) to victory in the Battle of Chattanooga in late November.

Toward a Union Victory (1864-65)

In March 1864, Lincoln put Grant in supreme command of the Union armies, replacing Halleck. Leaving William Tecumseh Sherman in control in the West, Grant headed to Washington, where he led the Army of the Potomac towards Lee's troops in northern Virginia. Despite heavy Union casualties in the Battle of the Wilderness and at Spotsylvania (both May 1864), at Cold Harbor (early June) and the key rail center of Petersburg (June), Grant pursued a strategy of attrition, putting Petersburg under siege for the next nine months.

Sherman outmaneuvered Confederate forces to take Atlanta by September, after which he and some 60,000 Union troops began the famous "March to the Sea," devastating Georgia on the way to capturing Savannah on December 21. Columbia and Charleston, South Carolina, fell to Sherman's men by mid-February, and Jefferson Davis belatedly handed over the supreme command to Lee, with the Confederate war effort on its last legs. Sherman pressed on through North Carolina, capturing Fayetteville, Bentonville, Goldsboro and Raleigh by mid-April.

Meanwhile, exhausted by the Union siege of Petersburg and Richmond, Lee's forces made a last attempt at resistance, attacking and captured the Federal-controlled Fort Stedman on March 25. An immediate counterattack reversed the victory, however, and on the night of April 2-3 Lee's forces evacuated Richmond. For most of the next week, Grant and Meade pursued the Confederates along the Appomattox River, finally exhausting their possibilities for escape. Grant accepted Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House on April 9. On the eve of victory, the Union lost its great leader: The actor and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Lincoln at Ford's Theatre in Washington on April 14. Sherman received Johnston's surrender at Durham Station, North Carolina on April 26, effectively ending the Civil War.

PHOTO GALLERIES

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The Civil War in the United States began in 1861, after decades of simmering tensions between northern and southern states over slavery, states' rights and westward expansion. Eleven southern states seceded from the Union to form the Confederacy. Ultimately more than 620,000 Americans' lives were lost in the four-year war that ended in a Confederate defeat.

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Financial support for the original broadcast of The Civil War was provided by General Motors Corporation, The National Endowment for the Humanities, The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations and The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

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The Civil War, an epic nine-episode series by the award-winning documentary filmmaker Ken Burns and produced in conjunction with WETA, Washington, D.C., first aired in September of 1990 to an audience of 40 million viewers. The film is a comprehensive and definitive history of the American Civil War, and the recipient of 40 major film and television awards, including two Emmys and two Grammys.

Heralded as an unforgettable introduction to a four-year conflict fought in 10,000 places, The Civil War was five years in the making. The film vividly embraces the entire sweep of the war: the complex causes and lasting effects of America's greatest and most moving calamity, the battles and the homefront, the generals and the private soldiers, the anguish of death in battle and the grief of families at home.

Premiered on PBS: September 23, 1990

Aired Completely Restored on PBS: September 2015

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The Civil War, an epic nine-episode series by the award-winning documentary filmmaker Ken Burns and produced in conjunction with WETA, Washington, D.C., first aired in September of 1990 to an audience of 40 million viewers. The film is a comprehensive and definitive history of the American Civil War, and the recipient of 40 major film and television awards, including two Emmys and two Grammys.

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J.E.B. "Jeb" Stuart's military reputation was established before the Civil War by his two encounters with abolitionist John Brown. Like his mentor Robert E. Lee, however, Stuart soon left the U.S. Army for the Confederacy, where he excelled as an intelligence gatherer, even duping his own father-in-law, a Union general.

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J.E.B. "Jeb" Stuart's military reputation was established before the Civil War by his two encounters with abolitionist John Brown. Like his mentor Robert E. Lee, however, Stuart soon left the U.S. Army for the Confederacy, where he excelled as an intelligence gatherer, even duping his own father-in-law, a Union general.

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Instead of advancing through northern Virginia, where he was sure huge rebel armies lurked, Union Major General George McClellan, proposed instead to ship his 121,500-man Army of the Potomac to the tip of the York-James Peninsula by sea, then fight his way west to Richmond.

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Af. Am. Soldiers in the Union Army and Slaves in the Confederate Army

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Af. Am. Soldiers in the Union Army and Slaves in the Confederate Army

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Slave to Soldier: Fighting for Freedom

"What shall we do with the Negro?" was a question posed in Northern newspapers as early as the summer of 1861. The question, of course, revealed an underlying attitude- white people still regarded African Americans as objects, not equals, and not a part of the polity. The status of freed slaves clearly presented a problem for the North. But in fact it played an important role in Confederate war councils as well. And ultimately the conflict proved how unready either side was to deal with it constructively.

The first serious proposal to overturn the Confederacy's system of racial slavery came from a surprising source: Maj. Gen. Patrick Cleburne, a zealous supporter of Southern independence, who was supported in his views by 13 other high-ranking officers in the Army of Tennessee. An Irish immigrant who had established himself as a successful lawyer in Arkansas, Cleburne became one of the Confederate Army's finest commanders. By January 1864, however, he viewed the Confederacy's dimming prospects with dismay.

Others Southerners had earlier voiced concern about the future of former slaves. After the fall of Vicksburg in July, a few citizens of Mississippi and Alabama had also felt the despair that weighed on Cleburne. In September 1863, the Jackson Mississippian had opined, "We must either employ the negroes ourselves, or the enemy will employ them against us." The Mobile Register decried the "danger to the South" from Northern use of black soldiers. Its editor asked, "Why not, if necessity requires, meet them with the same fighting material?" The Montgomery Weekly Mail urged its readers to bow to that same necessity, even if it was "revolting to every sentiment of pride, and to every principle that governed our institutions before the war."

But no one developed as thorough an argument for arming and freeing the slaves as Cleburne. The "present state of affairs" was grim, the general pointed out in a proposal that he sent to his immediate superior. Confederates had sacrificed "much of our best blood" and immense amounts of property, yet they were left with "nothing but long lists of dead and mangled." The South's forces, "Hemmed in" and menaced "at every point with superior forces," could "see no end to this except in our own exhaustion." A "catastrophe" lay "not far ahead unless some extraordinary change is soon made." Cleburne felt the South must act to avoid "subjugation" and "the loss of all we now hold most sacred."

"Three great causes," he wrote, were "operating to destroy us." Most fundamental was the Army's inferiority in numbers. Closely related to that problem was the Confederacy's "single source" of manpower compared to the enemy's "several sources." Cleburne's third cause was the most controversial: "slavery, from being one of our chief sources of strength at the commencement of the war, has now become, in a military point of view, one of our chief sources of weakness."

Jefferson Davis had recently proposed several steps to increase the size of the Army, but Cleburne said these were simply inadequate, listing the reasons why. Many deserters were outside Confederate lines and would not make reliable soldiers, even if captured. Ending substitution would merely bring into the Army an "unwilling and discontented" element. Drafting young boys and old men would "swell the sick lists more than" augment the ranks. The South's economy needed most of the men who were currently exempt, so few additional men could be gained from that source. Only Davis' idea of using black men "as wagoners, nurses, cooks, and other employe[e]s" made sense to Cleburne.

But he and his fellow officers also urged a far more drastic step: "We propose that we immediately commence training a large reserve of the most courageous of our slaves, and further that we guarantee freedom within a reasonable time to every slave in the South who shall remain true to the Confederacy in this war." To make that shocking proposal more palatable, Cleburne claimed that "every patriot" would surely prefer to lose slavery rather than his own independence-choose to "give up the negro slave rather than be a slave himself."

More eyebrow-raising assertions followed. Slavery, the general declared, "has become a military weakness," and in point of fact the Confederacy's "most vulnerable point." Not only were black soldiers swelling the Union ranks, but slavery was also undermining the South from within. "Wherever slavery is once seriously disturbed" by Union advances, whites ceased to "openly sympathize with our cause," he claimed. "The fear of their slaves is continually haunting them," and "they become dead to us." Meanwhile, the slaves worked as "an omnipresent spy system," aiding Union troops. Cleburne added, "for many years the negro has been dreaming of freedom," and it would be "preposterous" to "expect him to fight against it." It was equally preposterous to expect him to fight for the Confederacy without it. "Therefore when we make soldiers of them we must make free men of them beyond all question, and thus enlist their sympathies also." The South, Cleburne emphasized, had to face "the necessity for more fighting men." After countering possible objections and arguing that slaves could make good soldiers, he closed by urging prompt action on what he described as a "concession to common sense."

Throughout most of 1864, Cleburne's proposal went nowhere. His superior, General Joseph E. Johnston, declined to forward it to Richmond on the grounds that "it was more political than military in tenor." But another Army of Tennessee officer, scandalized by the notion of interfering with slavery, sent the document to Jefferson Davis in protest. At that point the Confederate president directed that Cleburne's idea should not even be discussed. With an eye on the 1864 elections in the North, Davis wanted to avoid dissension in the Southern ranks. He was hoping that the image of a strong, resolute Confederacy might help to defeat President Abraham Lincoln. But after the fall of Atlanta in September 1864, Davis knew his strategy had failed. The Army had to be enlarged.

On November 7, 1864, Davis urged Congress to increase the number of slaves used by the Army to 40,000. To reach that number he recommended purchasing the slaves and "engaging to liberate the negro on his discharge after service faithfully rendered." This amounted to proposing a sizable program of compensated emancipation. More significant was his statement that "should the alternative ever be presented of subjugation or the employment of the slave as a soldier, there seems no reason to doubt what should then be our decision."

This message was the cautious opening move in the Davis administration's plan to arm and free the slaves. Within a few weeks Davis and his allies were pressing forward with their maneuver, both inside the Confederacy as well as abroad. In hopes that emancipation might help the South to gain European support, Davis sent Duncan Kenner to England and France. A wealthy Louisiana slaveholder who had independently advocated enlisting and freeing slave soldiers, Kenner readily accepted his diplomatic instructions.

On the home front, the administration used Robert E. Lee, whose prestige within the Confederacy surpassed the president's, as its primary advocate. At the suggestion of Secretary of State Judah Benjamin, Lee invited his men to speak out, and most declared that they needed and wanted black reinforcements. More important, Lee himself called for bold steps. In January he wrote a Virginia legislator that the Confederacy should raise African-American troops "without delay." Lee not only had confidence that they could "be made efficient soldiers," he also argued that the Confederacy should capture their "personal interest" by "giving immediate freedom to all who enlist, and freedom at the end of the war to the families of those who discharge their duties faithfully (whether they survive or not), together with the privilege of residing at the South. To this might be added a bounty for faithful service." A similar letter, this one to Mississippi Congressman Ethelbert Barksdale, became public in February.

By February 1865, Lee had become the South's last remaining hope. The Richmond Examiner, which opposed arming slaves, imagined that "in the present position" of affairs, "the country will not venture to deny to General Lee anything he may ask for." The Richmond Sentinel predicted that "[w]ith the great mass of our people, nothing more than this letter [to Congressman Barksdale] is needed to settle every doubt or silence every objection." But both papers were wrong. Even Lee's great prestige was not potent enough to determine a question so fundamental to Southern society.

The idea of arming and freeing the slaves horrified many prominent Southerners. "If slaves will make good soldiers our whole theory of slavery is wrong," objected Howell Cobb of Georgia. North Carolina Senator William A. Graham blasted the administration's ideas as "insane proposals" and "confessions of despair." The Charleston Mercury insisted that African Americans were "inferior" and "prone to barbarism." It denounced Davis' "extraordinary suggestion" as "unsound and suicidal" and issued a racist warning that "swaggering buck niggers" would ruin the country. A Galveston, Texas, newspaper repeated the familiar argument that "slavery is the best possible condition for the slave himself" and opposed any "abandonment" of that "foundation principle." Davis, charged the Richmond Examiner, had adopted "the whole theory of the abolitionist." Lee did not escape criticism in the course of the controversy, the Examiner arguing that his military genius did not make him "an authority" on moral, social or political questions. It even questioned whether the general could be considered "a 'good Southerner'"-that is, one who was "thoroughly satisfied of the justice and beneficence of [N]egro slavery."

A few Confederates were willing to pursue independence without slavery. But most of the leadership elite valued slavery above all else. Although the South was in a truly desperate situation by that juncture, the Confederate Congress delayed on a decision for months, its members unwilling to act. Finally, in March 1865, the House passed a bill sponsored by Congressman Barksdale authorizing the president to call for one-quarter of any state's male slaves between the ages of 18 and 45. Opposition to the measure was strong in the Senate, and the bill would not have passed had Virginia's legislature not finally instructed its state's senators to vote yes.

Even so, this tardy measure referred only to using slaves as soldiers; it emancipated no one. The final clause specified that "nothing in this act shall be construed to authorize a change in the relation which the said slaves shall bear toward their owners." Freedom, as a reward for service, could come only if individual owners and the states in which they lived allowed it, as had always been the case in the Confederacy.

Davis tried to require a pledge of emancipation from any owner who offered his slave for service. But recruitment proved difficult, as resistance continued to making soldiers of slaves. A small number of black recruits began drilling in Richmond, but since the war soon came to an end, the Confederate proposal to arm and free slaves amounted to nothing. Most Confederate slaveholders did not want to give up slavery.

From a 21st-century vantage point, this refusal seems all the more noteworthy in view of the Richmond administration's ultra-conservative plans for race relations. When Davis and Benjamin were seeking allies for their measure, they made it clear that freedom would not bring equality. The government would have to emancipate soldiers "as a reward for good services." But for their families, "serfage or peonage" would not follow until after the war. In this way, Southern whites would "vindicate[e] our faith in the doctrine that the negro is an inferior race and unfitted for social or political equality with the white man." The Southern states should adjust the status of soldiers' families "by degrees."

Davis' plan envisioned "cautious legislation providing for their ultimate emancipation after an intermediate stage." While these families remained serfs, the Confederacy could legislate "certain rights of property" and provide legal protection "for marital and parental relations." These steps would not only improve "our institutions" but also blunt external criticism. No longer could critics point to aspects of slavery "calculated to draw down on us the odium and reprobation of civilized man."

Thus racism dominated the thinking of even those Confederates willing to consider arming and freeing slaves. Even after emancipation, no dramatic improvement in their social or political status would occur. African Americans might be better off after the war, but in a markedly limited way. Though they were technically free, they would remain inferior and subordinate within society.

Such low expectations were not restricted to the South. Racism, in fact, had always been a national problem. Though today the North is popularly credited with fighting the war for the sake of freedom and equality, such was not the case. This misconception had its origin in postwar cultural battles over the meaning of the Civil War, when Northerners often used emancipation to claim the moral high ground. Lincoln won adulation as the Great Emancipator in the decades following the conflict, and more recently some have argued that he was a "fervent idealist" and "moral visionary" who labored and schemed for racial equality. But during the war years the North shrank from giving a morally inspired answer to the question "What shall we do with the Negro?"

At best, a minority of Northerners adopted racially progressive views, while most of those supporting the Union cause continued to hold racist beliefs. Although Lincoln wanted an end to slavery, neither he nor his party was committed to racial equality. The Northern president was more focused on conciliating Southern whites, to gain their participation in reunion, than on improving the postwar status of African Americans.

A few facts can help to bring into perspective the larger picture of the American view of slavery. The Republican Party came into being to oppose slavery's expansion, and carefully distanced itself from the abolitionists. When Lincoln took the oath of office in 1861, he gave his support to a proposed constitutional amendment that would have guaranteed the existence of slavery against federal interference forever. This was in accord with his party's pledge to maintain "inviolate the rights of the States, and especially the right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively." This provision, Lincoln said, was "a law to me."

Once the conflict started, many Northerners soon concluded that an attack on slavery was necessary to win the war. Moving slowly, Lincoln repeatedly proposed measures of gradual, compensated emancipation. These plans envisioned voluntary action by the states and colonization of the freed slaves somewhere outside the nation. Lincoln particularly urged the border slave states to adopt such measures, as a means of dashing Confederates' hopes and bringing the war to a speedier end.

He justified the Emancipation Proclamation as a necessary war measure, taken under his authority as commander in chief, to preserve the Union. Thereafter the Republican Party and Republican newspapers, such as The New York Times, stressed that emancipation was a "military expedient," a "weapon of warfare." The war was "Still to be Prosecuted for the Restoration of the Union." Lincoln's "one fixed aim" was "the salvation of the Republic." Emancipation and elevation of the slaves were "secondary in importance to the salvation of the Union, and not to be sought at its expense." Or as Lincoln told Horace Greeley, "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union," and whatever he did about slavery he did "because I believe it helps to save the Union."

Many Republicans believed that African Americans would have to remain in a deeply degraded status, deprived of most rights. The Times contemptuously rejected the idea that emancipation would lead to the African American becoming "a voting citizen of the United States." Blacks were "incapable" of exercising the right of suffrage, and "for many generations to come" suffrage for the freedmen would bring about "the destruction of popular institutions on this continent." It was "little short of insane" to think otherwise. At the end of 1864 the Times was still declaring that the "black masses of the South, of a voting age, are as ignorant upon all public questions as the driven cattle."

Lincoln's views were not quite so negative. He said little throughout the war about elevating freedmen, but a few days before his death he did express a preference for giving the ballot to a few black men-"the very intelligent" and "those who serve our cause as soldiers." Nevertheless, he did not envision or promote rapid improvement in the practical conditions and social status of the freed people. What he expected was revealed in a letter to General John McClernand that is seldom quoted, since it does not support the idea of Lincoln as a fervent idealist.

Writing on January 8, 1863, Lincoln noted that in his Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation he had given Southern states 100 days to return to the Union. Had they returned, they could have avoided emancipation. Even then he was willing to allow "peace upon the old terms" if they acted "at once." Moreover, the rebelling states "need not to be hurt" by his proclamation. "Let them adopt systems of apprenticeship for the colored people, conforming substantially to the most approved plans of gradual emancipation, and, with the aid they can have from the general government, they may be nearly as well off, in this respect, as if the present trouble had not occurred."

This idea of apprenticeships, or "temporary arrangements" (as he also called it), was a fundamental part of Lincoln's thinking about the postwar future. When he issued his Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction at the end of 1863, he sought to reassure white Southerners. He would not object to Southern states adopting measures for the freed people that "shall recognize and declare their permanent freedom, provide for their education, and which may yet be consistent, as a temporary arrangement, with their present condition as a laboring, landless, and homeless class." He explained that he feared "confusion and destitution" resulting from emancipation and would acquiesce in "any reasonable temporary State arrangement" for the former slaves. Southern whites, the "deeply afflicted people in those States," might be "more ready to give up the cause of their affliction [slavery], if, to this extent, this vital matter be left to themselves."

Looking past the war, Lincoln wanted to engage Southerners in reconstruction, to induce them to participate rather than resist at every turn. For this reason he consistently reiterated his view that formerly rebellious states should be readmitted to the Union promptly. He did not call for changes in their constitutions, as the majority in Congress felt was necessary, and he staunchly backed his "ten-percent" government in Louisiana, despite the fact that it was widely criticized and had done little to improve the status of African Americans.

In fact, in his desire to appeal to Southern whites and respect states' rights, Lincoln supported a method of ratifying the 13th Amendment that would have made its success doubtful. Charles Sumner and other advocates of black rights feared that the defeated South would block the 13th Amendment. The Confederacy had more than enough states to defeat it, and a few states in the Union voted heavily Democratic and were unlikely to support the measure. For that reason Sumner argued that ratification should be determined only by the loyal states. In his last public statement, on April 11, 1865, Lincoln demurred, saying "such a ratification would be questionable, and sure to be persistently questioned." On the other hand, "a ratification by three-fourths of all the States would be unquestioned and unquestionable."

A more detailed analysis of Lincoln's policies augments this picture considerably, but the larger point about American society in 1865 is already clear. Racism pervaded the social landscape in both North and South. Although the war settled the question of secession vs. union, it failed to bring equal rights to African Americans. Before 1865 had passed, three Northern states-Connecticut, Wisconsin and Minnesota, all of which had very few black residents-voted against giving suffrage to African-American men. Equality for blacks would have to be sought in Reconstruction, and it would remain an elusive goal for many decades following the war's end.

Paul D. Escott is the Reynolds Professor of History at Wake Forest University. This article is adapted from his most recent book, "What Shall We Do With the Negro?": Lincoln, White Racism, and Civil War. For more on Patrick Cleburne, turn to "Resources," P. 73.

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"What shall we do with the Negro?" was a question posed in Northern newspapers as early as the summer of 1861. The question, of course, revealed an underlying attitude- white people still regarded African Americans as objects, not equals, and not a part of the polity.