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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.
Featured article
The Marietta-class monitors were a pair of ironclad river monitors laid down in the summer of 1862 for the United States Navy during the American Civil War. Construction was slow, partially for lack of labor, and the ships were not completed until December 1865, after the war was over. However the navy did not accept them until 1866 and immediately laid them up. They were sold in 1873 without ever having been commissioned. (Full article...)
Grand Parade of the States
During the American Civil War, the State of Vermont continued the military tradition started by the Green Mountain Boys of American Revolutionary War fame, contributing a significant portion of its eligible men to the war effort. (Full article...)
Featured biography
William Tecumseh Sherman (/tɛˈkʌmsə/ te-KUM-sə; February 8, 1820 – February 14, 1891) was an American soldier, businessman, educator, and author. He served as a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War (1861–1865), receiving recognition for his command of military strategy as well as criticism for the harshness of the scorched earth policies he implemented in conducting total war against the Confederate States. British military theorist and historian B. H. Liddell Hart declared that Sherman was "the first modern general".
Born in Ohio to a politically prominent family, Sherman graduated in 1840 from the United States Military Academy at West Point. He interrupted his military career in 1853 to pursue private business ventures, and at the outbreak of the Civil War he was superintendent of the Louisiana State Seminary of Learning & Military Academy (now Louisiana State University). Sherman distinguished himself at the First Battle of Bull Run in 1861, before being transferred to the Western Theater. Stationed in Kentucky, his pessimism about the outlook of the war led to a nervous breakdown that required him to be briefly put on leave. He recovered by forging a close partnership with General Ulysses S. Grant. Sherman served under Grant in 1862 and 1863 during the battles of forts Henry and Donelson, the Battle of Shiloh, the campaigns that led to the fall of the Confederate stronghold of Vicksburg on the Mississippi River, as well as the Chattanooga Campaign that culminated with the routing of the Confederate armies in the state of Tennessee. (Full article...)
WikiProjects
Featured picture
Quaker guns, by George Barnard and James F. Gibson
The burning of Columbia at Columbia, South Carolina in the American Civil War, by William Waud
Abraham Lincoln's private secretary and biographer John Hay
President Rutherford B. Hayes was the 19th President of the USA
United States President (and former Brigadier-General) Benjamin Harrison
Atlanta roundhouse ruin at History of Atlanta, by George Barnard
The Chickahominy – Sumner's Upper Bridge at Peninsula campaign, by William McIlvaine
Lithographic facsimile of the Bixby letter, by Huber's Museum
Daniel McCallum, by the Brady National Photographic Art Gallery
Siege of Yorktown, by James F. Gibson
Andersonville survivor
George Armstrong Custer, by George L. Andrews
Allan Pinkerton, President Lincoln, and John A. McClernand in 1862 by Alexander Gardner
Richmond, Virginia after the American Civil War
Confederate casualties at Chancellorsville during the American Civil War, by the National Archives and Records Administration
The print version of Sherman in South Carolina: The burning of McPhersonville at McPhersonville, South Carolina, by William Waud
Francis B. Spinola, Brigadier General for the Union in the American Civil War, and Congressman from New York
Andersonville Prison at Andersonville National Historic Site, by John L. Ransom
Military execution of the conspirators in the Abraham Lincoln assassination
The original sketch of Sherman in South Carolina: The burning of McPhersonville, at and by William Waud
Did you know...
- ... that the 1936 film Hearts in Bondage is a rare example of a Hollywood film depicting naval battles of the Civil War?
- ... that a number of Confederate cannons were captured at the Battle of Big Black River Bridge because battery horses were posted on the wrong side of the river?
- ... that in 1865, Confederate losses during the American Civil War were characterized as "blessings in disguise"?
- ... that the Confederate Army's 8th Missouri Infantry Regiment was considered a cavalry regiment, an infantry regiment, and an infantry battalion at different points of its existence?
- ... that during the American Civil War, Zachariah A. Rice wrote more than 63 letters to his wife, offering insight into the military life of a Confederate cavalry officer?
- ... that the Brooklyn Naval Hospital treated almost a quarter of Union casualties during the American Civil War?
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American Civil War topics
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- Attention needed
- ...to referencing and citation • ...to coverage and accuracy • ...to structure • ...to grammar • ...to supporting materials
- Popular pages
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- Cleanup needed
- The West Tennessee Raids
- Requested articles
- • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Requested American Civil War Medal of Honor recipients • •
- Expansion needed
- Battle of Boonsborough • Battle of Cabin Creek • Battle of Fort Sumter II • Battle of Guard Hill • Battle of Middle Boggy Depot • Battle of Rice's Station • Battle of Simmon's Bluff • Battle of Summit Point • Battle of Yellow Bayou • Charleston Arsenal • Edenton Bell Battery • Elmira Prison • First Battle of Dalton • Samuel Benton • Blackshear Prison • Orris S. Ferry • Edwin Forbes • Hiram B. Granbury • Henry Thomas Harrison • Ben Hardin Helm • Louis Hébert (colonel) • Benjamin G. Humphreys • Lunsford L. Lomax • Maynard Carbine • Daniel Ruggles • Thomas W. Sherman • Hezekiah G. Spruill • Smith Percussion Carbine • Edward C. Walthall • Confederate States Secretary of the Navy • Confederate States Secretary of the Treasury • David Henry Williams • Battle of Rome Cross Roads • Henry Boynton Clitz • Delaware in the American Civil War • Ironclad Board • United States Military Railroad • Kansas in the American Civil War • Salisbury National Cemetery • Rufus Daggett • Ebenezer Magoffin • Other American Civil War battle stubs • Other American Civil War stubs
- Images needed
- Battle of Lone Jack • James S. Rains • Preston Pond, Jr. • Melancthon Smith • Franklin Stillman Nickerson • Thomas Gamble Pitcher • Lewis B. Parsons Jr. • Isaac Ferdinand Quinby • James W. Reilly • Isaac F. Shepard • Francis Trowbridge Sherman • James R. Slack • Joseph Pannell Taylor • Henry Goddard Thomas • Melancthon S. Wade • James M. Warner
- Merging needed
- 1st Regiment New York Mounted Rifles and 7th Regiment New York Volunteer Cavalry
- Citations needed
- 1st Alabama Cavalry Regiment (Union) • 4th Maine Battery • 33rd Ohio Infantry • 110th New York Volunteer Infantry • Battle of Hatcher's Run • Camp Dennison • Confederate colonies • CSS Resolute • Dakota War of 1862 • Florida in the American Civil War • Ethan A. Hitchcock (general) • Fort Harker (Alabama) • Gettysburg (1993 film) • Iowa in the American Civil War • Fanny Titus Hazen
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Associated Wikimedia
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