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The Library makes the sound recordings in the National Jukebox available pursuant to permission from the rightsholders. Under the Music Modernization Act, many of these recordings will begin entering into the public domain on January 1, 2022, when all recordings published prior to 1923 will enter the public domain and will be free to use and reuse. Recordings published between 1923 and 1946 are then protected for 100 years, and recordings published between 1947 and 1956 are protected for 110 years. In addition, some of the items in the Jukebox, such as the Victrola Book of the Opera, are currently in the public domain and free to use and reuse.

You are responsible for deciding whether your use of the items in this collection is legal. You will need written permission from the rightsholders to copy, distribute, or otherwise use copyrighted materials except as allowed by fair use or other statutory exemptions. Some materials may be protected under international law. You may also need permission from holders of other rights, such as publicity and/or privacy rights.

Credit Line: Library of Congress, National Jukebox.

More about Copyright and other Restrictions.

For guidance about compiling full citations consult Citing Primary Sources.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Library makes the sound recordings in the National Jukebox available pursuant to permission from the rightsholders. Under the Music Modernization Act, many of these recordings will begin entering into the public domain on January 1, 2022, when all recordings published prior to 1923 will enter the public domain and will be free to use and reuse.

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About this Item

Title

Civil War Music

Other Title

12 recordings, 34:10

Contributor Names

conway's band

haydn quartet

harrison, charles

arthur pryor's band

werrenrath, reinald

victor military band

spencer, len

schumann-heink, ernestine

dixon, raymond

myers, j. w.

harlan, byron g.

stanley, frank c.

Created / Published

Language

Description

This collection of twelve performances evokes the years 1861 through 1865 through themes heard during the War Between the States. Included are melodramatic ballads such as "The vacant chair," stirring anthems such as "Tramp, tramp, tramp," a recitation by Len Spencer of Lincoln's address at Gettysburg, and the two opposing anthems "Battle hymn of the Republic" and "Dixie."

The Library makes the sound recordings in the National Jukebox available pursuant to permission from the rightsholders. Under the Music Modernization Act, many of these recordings will begin entering into the public domain on January 1, 2022, when all recordings published prior to 1923 will enter the public domain and will be free to use and reuse. Recordings published between 1923 and 1946 are then protected for 100 years, and recordings published between 1947 and 1956 are protected for 110 years. In addition, some of the items in the Jukebox, such as the Victrola Book of the Opera, are currently in the public domain and free to use and reuse.

You are responsible for deciding whether your use of the items in this collection is legal. You will need written permission from the rightsholders to copy, distribute, or otherwise use copyrighted materials except as allowed by fair use or other statutory exemptions. Some materials may be protected under international law. You may also need permission from holders of other rights, such as publicity and/or privacy rights.

Credit Line: Library of Congress, National Jukebox.

More about Copyright and other Restrictions.

For guidance about compiling full citations consult Citing Primary Sources.

Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Chicago citation style:

Conway'S Band, Haydn Quartet, Charles Harrison, Arthur Pryor'S Band, Reinald Werrenrath, Victor Military Band, Len Spencer, et al. Civil War Music. 2011. Web.. https://www.loc.gov/item/playlist-260772/.

APA citation style:

Conway'S Band, Haydn Quartet, Harrison, C., Arthur Pryor'S Band, Werrenrath, R., Victor Military Band [...] Stanley, F. C. (2011) Civil War Music. [Web.] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/playlist-260772/.

MLA citation style:

Conway'S Band, et al. Civil War Music. 2011. Web.. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/playlist-260772/>.

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This collection of twelve performances evokes the years 1861 through 1865 through themes heard during the War Between the States. Included are melodramatic ballads such as "The vacant chair," stirring anthems such as "Tramp, tramp, tramp," a recitation by Len Spencer of Lincoln's address at Gettysburg, and the two opposing anthems "Battle hymn of the Republic" and "Dixie."

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The First Battle of Bull Run, also known as the First Battle of Manassas, was the first major battle of the American Civil War and was a Confederate victory. The battle was fought on July 21, 1861 in Prince William County, Virginia, just north of the city of Manassas and about 25 miles west-southwest of Washington, D.C. The Union's forces were slow in positioning themselves, allowing Confederate reinforcements time to arrive by rail. Each side had about 18,000 poorly trained and poorly led troops in their first battle. It was a Confederate victory, followed by a disorganized retreat of the Union forces.
Just months after the start of the war at Fort Sumter, the Northern public clamored for a march against the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, which was expected to bring an early end to the Confederacy. Yielding to political pressure, Brig. Gen. Irvin McDowell led his unseasoned Union Army across Bull Run against the equally inexperienced Confederate Army of Brig. Gen. P. G. T. Beauregard camped near Manassas Junction.

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Harriet Tubman was an American abolitionist and political activist. Born into slavery, Tubman escaped and subsequently made some thirteen missions to rescue approximately seventy enslaved people, family and friends, using the network of antislavery activists and safe houses known as the Underground Railroad. She later helped abolitionist John Brown recruit men for his raid on Harpers Ferry. During the Civil War, she served as an armed scout and spy for the United States Army. In her later years, Tubman was an activist in the struggle for women's suffrage.
Born a slave in Dorchester County, Maryland, Tubman was beaten and whipped by her various masters as a child. Early in life, she suffered a traumatic head wound when an irate slave owner threw a heavy metal weight intending to hit another slave and hit her instead. The injury caused dizziness, pain, and spells of hypersomnia, which occurred throughout her life. She was a devout Christian and experienced strange visions and vivid dreams, which she ascribed to premonitions from God.
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Nat Turner was an enslaved African-American preacher who led a four-day rebellion of both enslaved and free black people in Southampton County, Virginia, beginning August 21, 1831. The rebellion caused the death of approximately 60 white men, women, and children. Whites organized militias and called out regular troops to suppress the uprising.

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Fought over the first three days of July 1863, the Battle of Gettysburg was one of the most crucial battles of the Civil War. The fate of the nation literally hung in the balance that summer of 1863 when General Robert E. Lee, commanding the "Army of Northern Virginia", led his army north into Maryland and Pennsylvania, bringing the war directly into northern territory. The Union "Army of the Potomac", commanded by Major General George Gordon Meade, met the Confederate invasion near the Pennsylvania crossroads town of Gettysburg,and what began as a chance encounter quickly turned into a desperate, ferocious battle. Despite initial Confederate successes, the battle turned against Lee on July 3rd, and with few options remaining, he ordered his army to return to Virginia. The Union victory at the Battle of Gettysburg, sometimes referred to as the "High Water Mark of the Rebellion" resulted not only in Lee's retreat to Virginia, but an end to the hopes of the Confederate States of America for independence.

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Born to a wealthy Virginia family, Antonia Ford was 23 when she provided military intelligence to Confederate cavalry general J.E.B. Stuart. Ford gathered information from Union soldiers who occupied her hometown of Fairfax Court House, which was halfway between Washington, D.C. and Manassas, Virginia. In October 1861, Stuart rewarded Ford with a written honorary commission as aide-de-camp and ordered that she "be obeyed, respected and admired."

In March 1863, Stuart's commission was used against Ford when she was accused of spying for John Singleton Mosby. Mosby's partisan rangers had captured Union general Edwin H. Stoughton in his headquarters-one of the most famous cavalry raids of the war. The Secret Service suspected Ford was involved in planning the attack in part because Stoughton and Ford had spent time together. The Secret Service sent a female operative, pretending to be a Confederate sympathizer, to meet with Ford, who showed her Stuart's commission. Ford was soon arrested. While being held, she was found with smuggled papers.

After several months at the Old Capitol Prison in Washington, D.C., Ford was released due to the petitioning of Union major Joseph C. Willard-one of her captors. Willard resigned from the Union Army, and he and Ford married in March 1864; Ford took an oath of allegiance to the United States.

The couple stayed in Washington, D.C. and had three children, but only one survived infancy. Their son, Joseph Edward Willard, later became lieutenant governor of Virginia and United States ambassador to Spain.

Ford died on February 14, 1871, at the age of 33. Her husband never remarried.

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Born to a wealthy Virginia family, Antonia Ford was 23 when she provided military intelligence to Confederate cavalry general J.E.B. Stuart. Ford gathered information from Union soldiers who occupied her hometown of Fairfax Court House, which was halfway between Washington, D.C. and Manassas, Virginia.

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In April 1861, a decade of rising sectional tension over the expansion of slavery and the balance of power between slave and free states erupted into a full-scale civil war when Confederate forces attacked the federal garrison at Fort Sumter, South Carolina.The ensuing four years tested the United States in ways never experienced before or since.

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The American Civil War was the defining event in our nation's history. Between 1861 and 1865 10,000 battles and engagements were fought across the continent, from Vermont to the New Mexico Territory, and beyond. Many elements of Civil War scholarship are still hotly debated. The facts on this page are based on the soundest information available. We provide facts, dates, figures, tables and clarification of common misconceptions. View the American Revolution and facts.

Q. When did the Civil War begin?

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. When did the Civil War end?

In the east, Robert E. Lee surrendered Confederate army to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse on April 9, 1865. General Joseph E. Johnston surrendered approximately 90,000 Confederates stationed in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida, on April 26, 1865, at Bennett Place in North Carolina. However, Bennett Place was not the last Confederate surrender, that occurred on June 23, 1865, with Gen. Stand Watie's Indian Territory troops. The last battle of the Civil War was fought at Palmito Ranch, Texas, on May 13, 1865.

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 was 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. 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 states fought for the Confederacy? When did they secede?

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. What states fought for the Union?

Maine, New York, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Kansas, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, California, Nevada, and Oregon fought for the Union and supported Abraham Lincoln. The northern economy was based on industry; factories and production provided most of the wealth.

Q. What were the border states?

Maryland, Delaware, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri were considered Border States.

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 Gulf of Mexico, and the brown water of the Mississippi River and its tributaries, and on the Atlantic Ocean as far off as the coast of France.

Q. How many battles were fought during the Civil War?
Battles of the Civil War
Although over 10,500 military engagements occurred during the Civil War, it is generally accepted that there were 50 major battles of the Civil War, with about 100 other significant battles. The battles were fought in three theaters; the Eastern Theater, the Western Theater, and the Trans-Mississippi Theater.

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. 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. Were there naval battles during 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. | Civil War Navies

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. Are there photographs of Civil War battles?
Learn more about Civil War Photography
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. Who won the Civil War?

The Federal army was victorious, and the rebellious states returned to the Union.

Q. How were the armies 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. 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. 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 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 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."

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. What role did African-Americans play in the war effort?
Learn more about African Americans in the Civil War
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.
Learn more about the truths and legends concerning "Black Confederates"
Native Americans fought on both sides of the Civil War. Many members of tribes fought for the Confederacy because they viewed the system of a confederation of states as easier to negotiate with, as opposed to the federal government who had been difficult, if not impossible, to negotiate with. Members of the "Five Civilized Tribes" of the South had become part of Southern society in many ways including plantations and owning slaves. Stand Watie, a member of the Cherokee Nation, was the highest-ranking Native American on either side of the conflict after earning the rank of general. As the war continued, the Cherokee Nation split over who to support, but eventually issuing their own Emancipation Proclamation.
Learn more about Native Americans in the Civil War
Q. Were there black Confederate soldiers?

Slaves and free blacks were present in the Confederate lines as 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.

Q. What was the role of Native Americans during the Civil War?

Native Americans fought on both sides of the Civil War. Many members of tribes fought for the Confederacy because they viewed the system of a confederation of states as easier to negotiate with, as opposed to the federal government which had been difficult, if not impossible, to negotiate with. Members of the "Five Civilized Tribes" of the South had become part of Southern society in many ways including plantations and owning slaves. Stand Watie, a member of the Cherokee Nation, was the highest-ranking Native American on either side of the conflict after earning the rank of general. As the war continued, the Cherokee Nation split over who to support, but eventually issued their own Emancipation Proclamation.

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. 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 number of American deaths in foreign wars eclipsed the number who died in the Civil War.

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. 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. 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. 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. What was Reconstruction?

Reconstruction was the period of time in which the US government worked to reconstruct the Union and reunite the states. Reconstruction has two main periods. The first was led by President Andrew Johnson and lasted until 1867. The second was led by Republicans in Congress and lasted until 1877. Johnson's Reconstruction was categorized by discriminatory regulation in the South and attacks against blacks and Northerners visiting the South. The second era was categorized by the Reconstruction Amendments, geared towards rights for recently freed former slaves.

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 American Battlefield Trust saved?

The American Battlefield 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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Facts and frequently asked questions relating to the American Civil War. Many elements of Civil War scholarship are still hotly debated. The facts on this page are based on the soundest information available. We provide facts, dates, figures, tables and clarification of common misconceptions.

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The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States from 1861 to 1865, between the North and the South. The Civil War began primarily as a result of the long-standing controversy over the enslavement of black people. War broke out in April 1861 when secessionist forces attacked Fort Sumter in South Carolina shortly after Abraham Lincoln had been inaugurated as the President of the United States. The loyalists of the Union in the North, which also included some geographically western and southern states, proclaimed support for the Constitution. They faced secessionists of the Confederate States in the South, who advocated for states' rights in order to uphold slavery.
Of the 34 U.S. states in February 1861, seven Southern slave states were declared by partisans to have seceded from the country, and the so-called Confederate States of America was organized in rebellion against the U.S. constitutional government. The Confederacy grew to control at least a majority of territory in eleven states, and it claimed the additional states of Kentucky and Missouri by assertions from native secessionists fleeing Union authority.

Discover this historical event

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American Civil War - Google Arts & Culture

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The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States from 1861 to 1865, between the North and the South. The Civil War began primarily as a result of the long-standing controversy over the enslavement of black people.

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Boring out the Big Guns on the USS Monitor

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Boring out the Big Guns on the USS Monitor

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NEWPORT NEWS - More than 15 years after Navy divers and NOAA archaeologists recovered the historic gun turret of the USS Monitor in 2002, conservators at The Mariners' Museum are preparing for a giant step in the preservation of two of the landmark Civil War ironclad's heaviest and most iconic features.

Immersed in treatment tanks since they were hoisted from the turret in 2004 - and cleaned by repeated campaigns of meticulous work with hand chisels and small air tools - the outsides of the Monitor's 16,000-pound Dahlgren guns are now so free of marine concretions that the inscriptions engraved at the Washington Navy Yard in 1862 can be read with ease, Chief Conservator William Hoffman says.

Electricity and chemistry have combined to complete their job, too, drawing out so much of the potentially destructive marine salts absorbed during 140 years in the Atlantic that they no longer pose a danger.

Yet inside the deep, 11-inch-wide bores the concretions still cling tightly - and the salts lurking behind them remain out of the reach of the electrolytic reduction treatment needed to prevent the iron from cracking when exposed to the air.

That's why the museum and its USS Monitor Center are making plans to rig, center and level the heavy guns on a custom-built sliding bed - then core out their roughly 11-foot-long bores with a continuously adjusted industrial drill.

"This is the last challenge when it comes to getting these guns out in front of the public - and it's a challenge of scale," Hoffman says.

"No one has ever done this on a gun this big before."

Threatened icons

Fabricated at the West Point Foundry in New York, the Monitor's 11-inch guns were designer John Ericsson's second choice for his revolutionary warship, which clashed with the CSS Virginia - also known as the Merrimack - in the historic first battle of ironclad ships on March 9, 1862, in Hampton Roads.

"He wanted 15-inch guns, but there were none available," Hoffman says.

"So they got these off the USS Dakotah."

Despite their size, the guns had enough clout to force a stand-off - and they kept the Virginia from inflicting further damage on the Union blockading fleet after its bloody March 8 rampage off Newport News Point, which ranked as the U.S. Navy's worst defeat before Pearl Harbor.

Everyone knew they'd made history that day, so when the ship was refitted at the Washington yard later that year the guns were inscribed with the names of the Monitor's inventor - Ericsson - and its commander - Lt. John L. Worden.

"These are the guns that stopped the Virginia. They're the whole reason why the turret was there," Hoffman says.

"So they're some of the signature players in the battle that changed naval warfare."

Still, getting those giant guns preserved after their long bath in the waters off Cape Hatteras, N.C., has been the work of more than a decade - with many years of treatment still ahead.

And not until the arrival of Conservator Erik Farrell in July did the Mariners' have the crucial player needed to go forward with the project, Hoffman says.

As an archaeological conservator working on the Queen Anne's Revenge in North Carolina, Farrell spent four years fighting the marine corrosion and salts that threatened Blackbeard's guns.

"If we don't get the concretion out, we can't get the salt out. And if we can't get the salt out the iron will continue to deteriorate over time," he says.

"It will just keep attacking the iron over and over again until there is no iron left to attack."

Heavyweight challenge

Sinking in a Dec. 31, 1862, storm, the Monitor turned upside down - losing its 120-ton turret before both the hull and the 20-foot-wide iron cylinder landed in a heap 235 feet below the surface.

That meant cutting away part of the ship in order to recover its most historic feature - then pulling the turret up with all its contents.

Though partially excavated in the water by Navy divers, the big iron drum still hasn't revealed all its secrets years after conservation started.

It's also presented challenge after technical challenge, including the job of figuring out how to core out the Dahlgrens' 11-inch-wide bores without inflicting any collateral damage.

"They've been fully cleaned as far as you can reach your hand in - but that's it," Farrell says.

"That leaves more than 8 feet of bore filled with one to three inches of marine concretion."

Rigging the heavy guns so they can be lined up exactly will be one of his first tasks - and that means fabricating a giant sliding bed and a customized array of heavy-duty cradle and bridge jacks that will enable him to adjust the barrels to any angle.

"It won't be perfect - but it will be close," he says, " and then we can compensate for any alignment problems by adjusting the drill. What you don't want here is wobble."

The industrial drill itself will come off the shelf and pack enough power and torque to spin the 2,200-pound guns he bored out for the Queen Anne's Revenge project, he says.

More problematic is the diamond-bonded coring bit needed to do the job without causing any harm.

"You don't want to go too big. You don't want to go too small," he says.

"So we'll need a 10.9-inch bit - and no one on the planet makes one."

Fabricating that one-of-a-kind tool at a custom shop will require as much as two months lead time, Farrell adds.

Before that, the museum must raise $30,000 to pay for the project, which is expected to start construction on the adjustable gun and drill rigs sometime next year.

Once all the tools are in place and the guns and drill properly aligned the boring will take just two days of very careful drilling.

"I've done this on much smaller guns. But these big Dahlgrens are going to be a challenge," Farrell says.

"They're bigger, heavier and more fragile - and we don't want to make a mistake."

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Boring out the big guns on the USS Monitor

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NEWPORT NEWS - More than 15 years after Navy divers and NOAA archaeologists recovered the historic gun turret of the USS Monitor in 2002, conservators at The Mariners' Museum are preparing for a giant step in the preservation of two of the landmark Civil War ironclad's heaviest and most iconic features.

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Debate Over Confederate Monuments Continues In Court After Their Removal

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Debate Over Confederate Monuments Continues In Court After Their Removal

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AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

Nearly a year ago, white nationalists gathered in Charlottesville, Va., to protest the removal of a Confederate statue. The protests turned violent, and a counterdemonstrator was killed. Those events in Charlottesville ignited debates across the country over what to do with Confederate monuments. Since then, dozens of statues have come down. But the process isn't easy. Seven Southern states have laws protecting military monuments and Confederate symbols. So recently I visited Memphis, Tenn., because they found a novel way around that problem. The fight in Memphis focused on a statue of a Confederate general and slave trader, Nathan Bedford Forrest.

For 112 years, it stood right here on a massive marble pedestal in the middle of Memphis in Health Sciences Park.

LEE MILLAR: No, the correct name is Forrest Park.

CORNISH: This is Lee Millar, a spokesman for the Sons of Confederate Veterans. He counts Forrest as a distant relative. The city of Memphis changed the name of this park in 2013, and Millar refuses to use the new one.

MILLAR: They think they can do whatever they want to anyway, so they call it something else.

CORNISH: The pedestal is now empty. It's surrounded by a chain-link fence and no trespassing signs. But Millar can still picture that statue.

MILLAR: It was 21 feet tall. It was made out of bronze. It was General Forrest on his horse, his favorite horse, King Philip, that he rode - one of the ones he rode throughout the war between the states.

CORNISH: Not all Memphians remember the statue so wistfully.

TAMI SAWYER: They don't say Nathan Bedford Forrest, who owned slaves, Nathan Bedford Forrest, who was racist and violent against black people.

CORNISH: Tami Sawyer is the founder of Take 'em Down 901, the group of activists that fought to remove the city's Confederate statues.

SAWYER: They say Nathan Bedford Forrest, a true Southern gentleman. Those are lies to me.

CORNISH: We met both Sawyer and Millar at the same park, same pedestal but not together. Sawyer helped organize rallies against this statue and a second monument to Confederate President Jefferson Davis in a different park.

SAWYER: We really spent a whole summer in this heat out here.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED CROWD #1: (Chanting) Nathan Bedford has got to go - hey, hey.

CORNISH: Rallies that gained momentum after the violence in Charlottesville in August.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Whose park?

UNIDENTIFIED CROWD #2: Our park.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Whose park?

UNIDENTIFIED CROWD #2: Our park.

CORNISH: Memphis city officials were open to change. But in Tennessee and half a dozen other states, it's illegal to remove monuments from government property without some kind of state approval. The mayor believed he found a loophole - Memphis could sell those city parks to a friendly buyer. Then the parks would no longer be government property, and that new owner could remove the Confederate statues. So on December 20, the City Council approved the sale to a newly formed nonprofit, and immediately the plan went into motion. Both Lee Millar and Tami Sawyer were there that night.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: A lot of police presence here at Health Sciences Park where the Nathan Bedford Forrest statue is. Take a look behind me.

MILLAR: This was about 5 o'clock.

SAWYER: The sun was setting. It was cold and rainy.

MILLAR: Anti-Forrest protesters gathered across the street.

SAWYER: There were about a hundred of us standing on the hill across the street.

MILLAR: Shouting and making a lot of noise.

(CHEERING)

SAWYER: There were activists. There were school teachers. My phone is blowing up.

MILLAR: My telephone was just erupting from people all over the country who were seeing this on the news.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Actually, they are putting the straps on, getting closer and closer to taking the statue down.

SAWYER: We saw the cranes come in. We're screaming.

MILLAR: They had to cut down one of the trees to get to it.

SAWYER: It's like another hour. We're like, is it happening tonight? Are they playing with us? And at 9:01, Nathan Bedford Forrest was lifted off the base.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: He's in the air, y'all. He's in the air.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: Yeah.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: Haul him out. Haul him out.

CORNISH: And when the night was over, Sawyer was emotional.

SAWYER: I've seen people fight for their entire lives and not get a moment like that.

CORNISH: So was Lee Millar.

MILLAR: Maybe ask your listeners, what would it feel like if your fifth great-grandfather's grave was destroyed? Yes, it's personal.

CORNISH: The remains of Nathan Bedford Forrest and his wife are still buried under the statue's now-barren pedestal, so Millar and the Sons of Confederate Veterans are suing. They're accusing Memphis and the new nonprofit - it's called Greenspace - of desecrating a grave site and skirting state law. That leaves the statues of Nathan Bedford Forrest and Jefferson Davis in limbo. They're now in an undisclosed location, and only one man knows where they are.

VAN DAVIS TURNER JR: My name is Van Davis Turner Jr. I'm a Shelby County commissioner for District 12. I'm also the president of Memphis Greenspace Incorporated.

CORNISH: Now the owner of two parks.

TURNER JR: Now the owner of two parks.

CORNISH: Indefinitely.

TURNER JR: Perhaps so, and two statues hopefully not indefinitely. We're ready to get rid of them.

CORNISH: We met Van Turner in the park down by the Mississippi River where the Davis statue once stood. He says last summer, he was hanging out with the city attorney at an NBA game when he heard about the idea of starting a nonprofit to buy the parks. And honestly, it didn't sound all that great.

TURNER JR: Because this was potentially a dangerous situation. And I have a wife and three children. You would possibly, you know, get death threats. And we did receive some. And are you willing to endure this? And I said yes, so basically...

CORNISH: So it'll cost you a lot of money.

TURNER JR: Right.

CORNISH: People will threaten your family.

TURNER JR: Right.

CORNISH: And it's going to be a legal morass.

TURNER JR: Right.

CORNISH: And you were like, sign me up.

TURNER JR: Yeah, yeah.

CORNISH: (Laughter).

Van Turner says the first company he hired to remove the statues pulled out after hearing of a contractor in Louisiana whose car was set on fire for doing a similar job in New Orleans. Once Turner did get the Memphis statues down, he still owned two parks, parks that needed the grass mowed, the lights kept on, liability insurance. He estimates it costs $30,000 a year or so. Offers to take the Confederate monuments off his hand dried up once the lawsuit kicked in. And while Memphis officials haven't faced any sort of backlash from this majority black city, there are some people who feel strongly that the move was unfair.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #5: (Unintelligible) Forward march.

(SOUNDBITE OF DRUMMING)

CORNISH: Many of them were gathered on a plantation in nearby Bartlett, Tenn., to celebrate Nathan Bedford Forrest's 197th birthday.

MILLAR: Contribute to the water bucket. That goes to our parks fund, the save the Forrest statue. And we're going to get it back, right?

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #6: Right.

MILLAR: Yeah.

CORNISH: That's Lee Millar again fundraising for the suit while Confederate soldier reenactors fired off a musket salute.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #7: I suggest you hold onto the small children and the dogs.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #8: (Unintelligible).

(SOUNDBITE OF GUNFIRE)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #8: (Unintelligible).

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

CORNISH: In this audience, Paul Allford of Memphis and Gary Elum of Potts Camp, Miss., say they are still upset at city officials in Memphis. And some of their language sounds extreme.

PAUL ALLFORD: Well, I think it's deplorable - is what it all comes down to. The mayor of Memphis, Strickland, like, he needs to be taken out and hung.

GARY ELUM: Since they took the statues down December 20 of last year, I have not spent one red cent in Memphis. And I refuse to spend a dime there. I'm not going to put money in the coffers as long as they're acting the way they're acting.

(CHEERING)

CORNISH: The Republican-led state legislature is also punishing Memphis financially. They cut money out of the state budget for the city's bicentennial celebration. But the person who should be worried about this doesn't care.

JIM STRICKLAND: This is Jim Strickland, mayor of the city of Memphis.

CORNISH: Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland came up with the idea to sell the city parks to a private group that would take the Confederate monuments down. And he says he doesn't care about the state docking Memphis funds or for those who argue it was a shady move to sell the parks to get around state law or about arguments that he is erasing history.

STRICKLAND: A statue is not history. A statue is placed in honor of someone. If you go to Germany, there is not a statue of Adolf Hitler. But you certainly learn about Adolf Hitler. And people ought to have in their history textbooks and in museums a history of Nathan Bedford Forrest. But statues are for honoring people. Memphis of the 21st century does not want to honor that individual.

(SOUNDBITE OF CHRIS THILE AND BRAD MEHLDAU SONG, "SCARLET TOWN")

CORNISH: So what do you do with a Confederate statue of a figure that a community no longer wants to honor? Some have suggested they belong in museums. So why aren't those institutions stepping up? We'll find out tomorrow on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.

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Debate Over Confederate Monuments Continues In Court After Their Removal

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AUDIE CORNISH, HOST: Nearly a year ago, white nationalists gathered in Charlottesville, Va., to protest the removal of a Confederate statue. The protests turned violent, and a counterdemonstrator was killed. Those events in Charlottesville ignited debates across the country over what to do with Confederate monuments. Since then, dozens of statues have come down.

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When the rebel states refused to rejoin the Union early in the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation and created African-American regiments in the Union Army and Navy. A memorial in Washington, D. C. honors those units, which faced particular viciousness from the opposing army and discrimination from within their own.

More than 200,000 African-Americans filled the 175 regiments of the United States Colored Troops (USCT), comprising approximately one-tenth of the Union's forces. Their names, and those of their white officers, are inscribed on the Wall of Honor at the African-American Civil War Memorial, the first memorial dedicated solely to those troops.

Designed by Ed Hamilton, the granite-paved plaza also includes a nine-foot statue called The Spirit of Freedom, which features black servicemen from the Army and Navy in the front, as well as another soldier and his family in the back. The Spirit of Freedom's face watches over them.

The memorial was dedicated in 1998 and was soon joined by the African-American Civil War Museum across the street. At the museum, visitors can dress in period uniforms, look up their ancestors in the USCT or register as descendants, and study photographs and documents connected to the USCT.

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When the rebel states refused to rejoin the Union early in the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation and created African-American regiments in the Union Army and Navy. A memorial in Washington, D. C. honors those units, which faced particular viciousness from the opposing army and discrimination from within their own.

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Civil War Archives - American Military History Podcast

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Seven Days of fighting in late June and early July would change the face of the Civil War - as Robert E Lee assumed command of the Confederates and launched an offensive against the Union forces surrounding Richmond

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The First Battle

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Modern and historic photos, illustration, and drawing related to the Battle of Fort Sumter and Fort Sumter during the Civil War.

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The Bloodiest Battle

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From McPherson's Ridge to Devil's Den and Little Round Top, see our collection of Gettysburg photos.

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The Last Battle

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A gallery of historic photos from the end of the Civil War, including the Battle Petersburg, the Grand Review, Lee's Surrender, and the hanging of Lincoln's assassins.