American Civil War (1861 – 1865)

American Civil War (1861 – 1865)

Background

The United States Civil War (also known as the American Civil War and the war between the states) was a bloody and divisive conflict between the Union Army (or the North) and the Confederate States of America (the South) over the institution of slavery, states’ rights, and western territories’ expansion.

Trigger Events

There was a fundamental economic difference between America’s northern and southern regions in the mid-19th century; the North’s economy relied on manufacturing and industry, while the South mainly had an agricultural economy (most notably, large-scale farming of tobacco and cotton) that depended on the labor of enslaved black people — a long-held tradition.

The election of Abraham Lincoln — a Republican who opposed slavery’s expansion into the West — in 1860 resulted in the initial secession of seven slave states (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas) in the deep South and the formation of a new nation, the Confederate States of America.

On April 12, the illegitimate nation’s first action was to begin a 34-hour bombardment on Fort Sumter, South Carolina (which had — among several other Forts — become an outpost in a foreign land) after President Lincoln decided to resupply the beleaguered garrisons there. Though they were the first shots of the civil war, surprisingly, the encounter claimed no victims.

With war beginning, President Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to serve in the Northern Army — a call that widened in the coming months after it became clear that the conflict was neither limited nor short. Unwilling to contribute troops, four more southern states (Arkansas, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia) dissolved their ties and joined the Confederacy, making them eleven.

Aftermath

After four years of conflict (from April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865), at Appomattox Court House and Bennett Place, all principal Confederate armies surrendered, and the fleeing Confederate President, Jefferson Davis, was captured. Subsequently, the resistance collapsed, and the war ended.

Much of the South went bankrupt due to the civil war, leaving local governments in disarray, farms, roads, plantations in ruins, and entire generations of men in blue-and-gray dead. Although the severe lack of technology and infrastructure made the exact number of the unprecedented casualties unknown, many scholars have theorized that the war had resulted in more than 620,000 people (both white and black) dead and millions more injured.

It wasn’t all bleak, however — even with the assassination of President Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth — because of the ratification of the three amendments (the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments; also known as civil war amendments). They are, in numerical order, the abolishment of slavery, equal protection under the law, and the right to vote for all, regardless of race.

Additionally, in the years that followed (known as the Reconstruction Era), many Union soldiers occupied the Southern states as they were gradually rebuilt and became part of the Union again to ensure obedience to the law.

Bibliography

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