Portal:American Civil War

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The American Civil War Portal

Union troops in trenches at Petersburg

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 Battle of Fort Donelson was fought from February 11–16, 1862, in the Western Theater of the American Civil War. The Union capture of the Confederate fort near the Tennessee–Kentucky border opened the Cumberland River, an important avenue for the invasion of the South. The Union's success also elevated Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant from an obscure and largely unproven leader to the rank of major general, and earned him the nickname of "Unconditional Surrender" Grant.

Following his capture of Fort Henry on February 6, Grant moved his army (later to become the Union's Army of the Tennessee) 12 miles (19 km) overland to Fort Donelson, from February 11 to 13, and conducted several small probing attacks. On February 14, Union gunboats under Flag Officer Andrew H. Foote attempted to reduce the fort with gunfire, but were forced to withdraw after sustaining heavy damage from the fort's water batteries. (Full article...)

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Grand Parade of the States

As a fervently abolitionist and strongly Republican state, Maine contributed a higher proportion of its citizens to the Union armies than any other, as well as supplying money, equipment and stores. No land battles were fought in Maine. The only episode was the Battle of Portland Harbor (1863) that saw a Confederate raiding party thwarted in its attempt to capture a revenue cutter.

Abraham Lincoln chose Maine's Hannibal Hamlin as his first Vice President. The future General Joshua L. Chamberlain and the 20th Maine Volunteer Infantry Regiment played a key role at the Battle of Gettysburg, and the 1st Maine Heavy Artillery Regiment lost more men in a single charge during the siege of Petersburg than any Union regiment in the war. (Full article...)

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Winfield Scott Hancock (February 14, 1824 – February 9, 1886) was a United States Army officer and the Democratic nominee for President of the United States in 1880. He served with distinction in the Army for four decades, including service in the Mexican–American War and as a Union general in the American Civil War. Known to his Army colleagues as "Hancock the Superb," he was noted in particular for his personal leadership at the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863. His military service continued after the Civil War, as Hancock participated in the military Reconstruction of the South and the U.S.'s western expansion and war with the Native Americans at the Western frontier. This concluded with the Medicine Lodge Treaty. From 1881 to 1885 he was president of the Aztec Club of 1847 for veteran officers of the Mexican-American War.

Hancock's reputation as a war hero at Gettysburg, combined with his status as a Unionist and supporter of states' rights, made him a potential presidential candidate. When the Democrats nominated him for president in 1880, he ran a strong campaign, but was narrowly defeated by Republican James A. Garfield. Hancock's last public service involved the oversight of President Ulysses S. Grant's funeral procession in 1885. (Full article...)

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

Did you know...

... that the only functioning secondary school in Mississippi during the American Civil War was founded by Thomas S. Gathright?
... that Dubuque, Arkansas, was destroyed in the American Civil War and is now covered by the waters of Bull Shoals Lake?
... that after the Little Rock campaign, Union forces held three-quarters of Arkansas?
... that Justus H. Rathbone, founder of the Knights of Pythias, served as a hospital steward during 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 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?