Portal:American Civil War

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The American Civil War Portal

Artillery piece on the Antietam battlefield

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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Major General John C. Frémont circa 1861

The Frémont Emancipation was part of a military proclamation issued by Major General John C. Frémont (1813–1890) on August 30, 1861, in St. Louis, Missouri during the early months of the American Civil War. The proclamation placed the state of Missouri under martial law and decreed that all property of those bearing arms in rebellion would be confiscated, including slaves, and that confiscated slaves would subsequently be declared free. It also imposed capital punishment for those in rebellion against the federal government.

Frémont, a career army officer, frontiersman and politician, was in command of the military Department of the West from July 1861 to October 1861. Although Frémont claimed his proclamation was intended only as a means of deterring secessionists in Missouri, his policy had national repercussions, potentially setting a highly controversial precedent that the Civil War would be a war of liberation. (Full article...)

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Grand Parade of the States

The present-day state of Nebraska was still a territory of the United States during the American Civil War. It did not achieve statehood until March 1867, two years after the war ended. Nevertheless, the Nebraska Territory contributed significantly to the Union war effort. (Full article...)

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Portrait c. 1870–1875

Andrew Johnson (December 29, 1808 – July 31, 1875) was the 17th president of the United States, serving from 1865 to 1869. He assumed the presidency following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, as he was vice president at that time. Johnson was a Democrat who ran with Abraham Lincoln on the National Union Party ticket, coming to office as the Civil War concluded. He favored quick restoration of the seceded states to the Union without protection for the newly freed people who were formerly enslaved as well as pardoning ex-Confederates. This led to conflict with the Republican-dominated Congress, culminating in his impeachment by the House of Representatives in 1868. He was acquitted in the Senate by one vote.

Johnson was born into poverty and never attended school. He was apprenticed as a tailor and worked in several frontier towns before settling in Greeneville, Tennessee, serving as an alderman and mayor before being elected to the Tennessee House of Representatives in 1835. After briefly serving in the Tennessee Senate, Johnson was elected to the House of Representatives in 1843, where he served five two-year terms. He became governor of Tennessee for four years, and was elected by the legislature to the Senate in 1857. During his congressional service, he sought passage of the Homestead Bill which was enacted soon after he left his Senate seat in 1862. Southern slave states seceded to form the Confederate States of America, including Tennessee, but Johnson remained firmly with the Union. He was the only sitting senator from a Confederate state who did not promptly resign his seat upon learning of his state's secession. In 1862, Lincoln appointed him as Military Governor of Tennessee after most of it had been retaken. In 1864, Johnson was a logical choice as running mate for Lincoln, who wished to send a message of national unity in his re-election campaign, and became vice president after a victorious election in 1864. (Full article...)

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

Did you know...

... that Charles Herman Allen, university administrator and American Civil War captain, opened the University of Wisconsin to female enrollment in 1863?
... 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 the only functioning secondary school in Mississippi during the American Civil War was founded by Thomas S. Gathright?
... that Benjamin Jackson was likely paid at least $300 to fight in the American Civil War as Lewis Saunders?
... that Emma Dean Powell received a pass from General Ulysses S. Grant to accompany her husband to battlefield camps during the American Civil War after he lost his arm?
... that Dubuque, Arkansas, was destroyed in the American Civil War and is now covered by the waters of Bull Shoals Lake?