Portal:American Civil War

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The American Civil War Portal

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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Coat of arms

The 116th Infantry Regiment is an infantry regiment in the Virginia Army National Guard.

The regiment was formed as part of the Virginia Militia. It is one of several National Guard units with colonial roots. Units in its lineage included the Confederate Stonewall Brigade of the Army of Northern Virginia. It was formed under the designation of the 116th during World War I, when previously existing Virginia National Guard units were consolidated in federal service. It fought in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive with the 29th Infantry Division and returned to the United States in 1919, where it was demobilized. It was reformed in 1922 and called back into federal service before the American entry into World War II in March 1941. It fought in the Normandy landings, on Omaha Beach, where it suffered heavy casualties. It served continuously with the 29th Infantry Division in its eastward advance until reaching the Elbe at the end of World War II in Europe. (Full article...)

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Grand Parade of the States

Indiana, a state in the Midwest, played an important role in supporting the Union during the American Civil War. Despite anti-war activity within the state, and southern Indiana's ancestral ties to the South, Indiana was a strong supporter of the Union. Indiana contributed approximately 210,000 Union soldiers, sailors, and marines. Indiana's soldiers served in 308 military engagements during the war; the majority of them in the western theater, between the Mississippi River and the Appalachian Mountains. Indiana's war-related deaths reached 25,028 (7,243 from battle and 17,785 from disease). Its state government provided funds to purchase equipment, food, and supplies for troops in the field. Indiana, an agriculturally rich state containing the fifth-highest population in the Union, was critical to the North's success due to its geographical location, large population, and agricultural production. Indiana residents, also known as Hoosiers, supplied the Union with manpower for the war effort, a railroad network and access to the Ohio River and the Great Lakes, and agricultural products such as grain and livestock. The state experienced two minor raids by Confederate forces, and one major raid in 1863, which caused a brief panic in southern portions of the state and its capital city, Indianapolis.

Indiana experienced significant political strife during the war, especially after Governor Oliver P. Morton suppressed the Democratic-controlled state legislature, which had an anti-war (Copperhead) element. Major debates related to the issues of slavery and emancipation, military service for African Americans, and the draft, ensued. These led to violence. In 1863, after the state legislature failed to pass a budget and left the state without the authority to collect taxes, Governor Morton acted outside his state's constitutional authority to secure funding through federal and private loans to operate the state government and avert a financial crisis. (Full article...)

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Photograph by Mathew Brady, c. 1859

Jefferson F. Davis (June 3, 1808 – December 6, 1889) was an American politician who served as the first and only president of the Confederate States from 1861 to 1865. He represented Mississippi in the United States Senate and the House of Representatives as a member of the Democratic Party before the American Civil War. He was the United States Secretary of War from 1853 to 1857.

Davis, the youngest of ten children, was born in Fairview, Kentucky, but spent most of his childhood in Wilkinson County, Mississippi. His eldest brother Joseph Emory Davis secured the younger Davis's appointment to the United States Military Academy. Upon graduating, he served six years as a lieutenant in the United States Army. After leaving the army in 1835, Davis married Sarah Knox Taylor, daughter of general and future President Zachary Taylor. Sarah died from malaria three months after the wedding. Davis became a cotton planter, building Brierfield Plantation in Mississippi on his brother Joseph's land and eventually owning as many as 113 slaves. (Full article...)

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

Did you know...

... that Francis Orray Ticknor was a country doctor whose fame as a poet relies on "Little Giffen", a poem about one of his patients who died in the American Civil War?
... that at the Battle of La Haye-du-Puits in July 1944, a Confederate flag dating to the American Civil War was raised over the town?
... that The Land We Love, a little magazine that merged into Southern Magazine, printed American Civil War recollections, poetry, agricultural material, and many works by female authors?
... that the only functioning secondary school in Mississippi during the American Civil War was founded by Thomas S. Gathright?
... that in the aftermath of the American Civil War, the only Black-led organization providing teachers to formerly enslaved people was the African Civilization Society?
... 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?