Portal:American Civil War

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The American Civil War Portal

Charleston, South Carolina suffered late in the war

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 Confederate Memorial in 2010

The Confederate Memorial (also referred to as the First Confederate Memorial) at Indian Mound Cemetery in Romney, West Virginia, commemorates residents of Hampshire County who died during the American Civil War while fighting for the Confederate States of America. It was sponsored by the Confederate Memorial Association, which formally dedicated the monument on September 26, 1867. The town of Romney has claimed that this is the first memorial structure erected to memorialize the Confederate dead in the United States and that the town performed the nation's first public decoration of Confederate graves on June 1, 1866.

The idea to memorialize the Confederate war dead of Hampshire County was first discussed in the spring of 1866. Following the decoration of the graves that summer, the Confederate Memorial Association engaged in fundraising for construction of the memorial, and by 1867 the necessary funds were raised. The inscription The Daughters of Old Hampshire Erect This Tribute of Affection to Her Heroic Sons Who Fell in Defence of Southern Rights was selected, and the contract for the memorial's construction was awarded to the Gaddes Brothers firm of Baltimore. The memorial's components were delivered to Indian Mound Cemetery on September 14, 1867, and the memorial was dedicated on September 26 of that year. The construction of the Confederate Memorial marked the beginning of an era of post-war revitalization for Hampshire County following the American Civil War. (Full article...)

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Grand Parade of the States

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts played a significant role in national events prior to and during the American Civil War (1861–1865). Massachusetts dominated the early antislavery movement during the 1830s, motivating activists across the nation. This, in turn, increased sectionalism in the North and South, one of the factors that led to the war. Politicians from Massachusetts, echoing the views of social activists, further increased national tensions. The state was dominated by the Republican Party and was also home to many Radical Republican leaders who promoted harsh treatment of slave owners and, later, the former civilian leaders of the Confederate States of America and the military officers in the Confederate States Army.

Once hostilities began, Massachusetts supported the war effort in several significant ways, sending 159,165 men to serve in the Union Army and the Union Navy for the loyal North. One of the best known Massachusetts units was the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, the first regiment of African American soldiers (led by white officers). Additionally, a number of important generals came from Massachusetts, including Benjamin F. Butler, Joseph Hooker, who commanded the Federal Army of the Potomac in early 1863, as well as Edwin V. Sumner and Darius N. Couch, who both successively commanded the II Corps of the Union Army. (Full article...)

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1896 portrait

Benjamin Harrison (August 20, 1833 – March 13, 1901) was the 23rd president of the United States, serving from 1889 to 1893. He was a member of the Harrison family of Virginia—a grandson of the ninth president, William Henry Harrison, and a great-grandson of Benjamin Harrison V, a Founding Father. A Union Army veteran and a Republican, he defeated incumbent Grover Cleveland to win the presidency.

Harrison was born on a farm by the Ohio River and graduated from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. After moving to Indianapolis, he established himself as a prominent local attorney, Presbyterian church leader, and politician in Indiana. During the American Civil War, he served in the Union Army as a colonel, and was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as a brevet brigadier general of volunteers in 1865. Harrison unsuccessfully ran for governor of Indiana in 1876. The Indiana General Assembly elected Harrison to a six-year term in the Senate, where he served from 1881 to 1887. (Full article...)

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

Did you know...

... that Colonel Bradley Winslow was brevetted by US president Abraham Lincoln for "brave and gallant conduct" during the siege of Petersburg in the American Civil War?
... that Carter Moore Braxton fought for the Confederacy throughout the American Civil War and, according to one report, had seven horses killed under him but avoided any wounds?
... that some historians believe that Steele's Greenville expedition marked a shift in the Union's war policy?
... that singer Frank Croxton performed a duet with his father for the unveiling of a monument to a Confederate States Army general?
... 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 according to one historian, James S. Rains made a "significant contribution to the Confederate war effort" by getting drunk?