Portal:American Civil War

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The American Civil War Portal

Reenactor discharging his musket

The American Civil War (1861–1865) was a sectional rebellion against the United States of America by the Confederate States, formed of eleven southern states' governments which moved to secede from the Union after the 1860 election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States. The Union's victory was eventually achieved by leveraging advantages in population, manufacturing and logistics and through a strategic naval blockade denying the Confederacy access to the world's markets.

In many ways, the conflict's central issues – the enslavement of African Americans, the role of constitutional federal government, and the rights of states – are still not completely resolved. Not surprisingly, the Confederate army's surrender at Appomattox on April 9,1865 did little to change many Americans' attitudes toward the potential powers of central government. The passage of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments to the Constitution in the years immediately following the war did not change the racial prejudice prevalent among Americans of the day; and the process of Reconstruction did not heal the deeply personal wounds inflicted by four brutal years of war and more than 970,000 casualties – 3 percent of the population, including approximately 560,000 deaths. As a result, controversies affected by the war's unresolved social, political, economic and racial tensions continue to shape contemporary American thought. The causes of the war, the reasons for the outcome, and even the name of the war itself are subjects of much discussion even today. (Full article)

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The first day of the Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War took place on July 1, 1863, and began as an engagement between isolated units of the Army of Northern Virginia under Confederate General Robert E. Lee and the Army of the Potomac under Union Maj. Gen. George G. Meade. It soon escalated into a major battle which culminated in the outnumbered and defeated Union forces retreating to the high ground south of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

The first-day battle proceeded in three phases as combatants continued to arrive at the battlefield. In the morning, two brigades of Confederate Maj. Gen. Henry Heth's division (of Lt. Gen. A.P. Hill's Third Corps) were delayed by dismounted Union cavalrymen under Brig. Gen. John Buford. As infantry reinforcements arrived under Maj. Gen. John F. Reynolds of the Union I Corps, the Confederate assaults down the Chambersburg Pike were repulsed, although Gen. Reynolds was killed. (Full article...)

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Grand Parade of the States

Slavery had been a divisive issue in Delaware for decades before the American Civil War began. Opposition to slavery in Delaware, imported from Quaker-dominated Pennsylvania, led many slaveowners to free their slaves; half of the state's black population was free by 1810, and more than 90% were free by 1860. This trend also led pro-slavery legislators to restrict free black organizations, and the constabulary in Wilmington was accused of harsh enforcement of runaway slave laws, while many Delawareans kidnapped free blacks among the large communities throughout the state and sold them to plantations further south.

During the Civil War, Delaware was a slave state that remained in the Union. (Delaware voters voted not to secede on January 3, 1861.) Although most Delaware citizens who fought in the Civil War served in regiments on the Union side, some did, in fact, serve in Delaware companies on the Confederate side in the Maryland and Virginia Regiments. Delaware was the one slave state from which the Confederate States of America could not recruit a full regiment. (Full article...)

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John Young Brown (June 28, 1835 – January 11, 1904) was an American politician from the U.S. Commonwealth of Kentucky who represented the state in the United States House of Representatives and served as its 31st governor. Brown was elected to the House of Representatives for three non-consecutive terms, each of which was marred by controversy. He was first elected in 1859, despite his own protests that he was not yet twenty-five years old, the minimum age set by the Constitution for serving in the legislature. The voters of his district elected him anyway, but he was not allowed to take his seat until the Congress' second session, after he was of legal age to serve. After moving to Henderson, Kentucky, Brown was elected from that district in 1866. On this occasion, he was denied his seat because of alleged disloyalty to the Union during the Civil War. Voters in his district refused to elect another representative, and the seat remained vacant throughout the term to which Brown was elected. After an unsuccessful gubernatorial bid in 1871, Brown was again elected to the House in 1872 and served three consecutive terms. During his final term, he was officially censured for delivering a speech excoriating Massachusetts Representative Benjamin F. Butler. The censure was later expunged from the congressional record.

After his service in the House, Brown took a break from politics but re-entered the political arena as a candidate for governor of Kentucky in 1891. He secured the Democratic nomination in a four-way primary election, then convincingly won the general election over his Republican challenger, Andrew T. Wood. Brown's administration, and the state Democratic Party, were split between gold standard supporters (including Brown) and supporters of the free coinage of silver. Brown's was also the first administration to operate under the Kentucky Constitution of 1891, and most of the legislature's time was spent adapting the state's code of laws to the new constitution. Consequently, little of significance was accomplished during Brown's term. (Full article...)

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

Did you know...

... that Enoch Marvin Banks resigned from the University of Florida because of public outrage over his belief that the American Civil War was caused by slavery?
... that Byron Root Pierce was Michigan's last living Civil War general?
... that Dubuque, Arkansas, was destroyed in the American Civil War and is now covered by the waters of Bull Shoals Lake?
... that CSS Beaufort fought USS Albatross in the first ship-versus-ship action of the American Civil War?
... that after the Little Rock campaign, Union forces held three-quarters of Arkansas?
... that singer Frank Croxton performed a duet with his father for the unveiling of a monument to a Confederate States Army general?