Portal:American Civil War

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The American Civil War Portal

Two Whitworth rifled guns at Morris Island, South Carolina

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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Ozark serving in the Mississippi River Squadron in 1864–65

USS Ozark was a single-turreted river monitor built for the United States Navy during the American Civil War. The ship served in the Mississippi River Squadron during the war, and participated in the Red River Campaign shortly after she was commissioned in early 1864. Ozark patrolled the Mississippi River and its tributaries after the end of the campaign for the rest of the war. She was decommissioned after the war and sold in late 1865.

The ship's activities or owner are not known after her sale, but Ozark transported Federal troops and New Orleans police attempting to apprehend the white supremacists who killed numerous blacks during the Colfax Massacre in 1873. She ferried witnesses back and forth to their homes on the Red River during the subsequent trials in 1874. Her ultimate fate is unknown. (Full article...)

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Grand Parade of the States

The American Civil War significantly affected Tennessee, with every county witnessing combat. During the War, Tennessee was a Confederate state, and the last state to officially secede from the Union to join the Confederacy. Tennessee had been threatening to secede since before the Confederacy was even formed, but didn’t officially do so until after the fall of Fort Sumter when public opinion throughout the state drastically shifted. Tennessee seceded in protest to President Lincoln's April 15 Proclamation calling forth 75,000 members of state militias to suppress the rebellion. Although Tennessee provided a large number of troops for the Confederacy, it would also provide more soldiers for the Union Army than any other state within the Confederacy.

In February 1862, some of the war's first serious fighting took place along the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers, recognized as major military highways, and mountain passes such as Cumberland Gap were keenly competed-for by both sides. The Battle of Shiloh and the fighting along the Mississippi brought glory to the then little-known Ulysses S. Grant, while his area commander Henry Halleck was rewarded with a promotion to General-in-Chief. The Tullahoma campaign, led by William Rosecrans, drove the Confederates from Middle Tennessee so quickly that they did not take many casualties, and were strong enough to defeat Rosecrans soon afterward. At Nashville in December 1864, George Thomas routed the Army of Tennessee under John Bell Hood, the last major battle fought in the state. (Full article...)

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Lawrence Sullivan "Sul" Ross (September 27, 1838 – January 3, 1898) was the 19th governor of Texas, a Confederate States Army general during the American Civil War, and the 4th president of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas, now called Texas A&M University.

Ross was raised in the Republic of Texas, which was later annexed to the United States. Much of his childhood was spent on the frontier, where his family founded the town of Waco. Ross attended Baylor University (then located in Independence, Texas) and Florence Wesleyan University in Florence, Alabama. On one of his summer breaks, he suffered severe injuries while fighting Comanches. After graduation, Ross joined the Texas Rangers, and in 1860, led Texas Rangers in the Battle of Pease River, where federal troops recaptured Cynthia Ann Parker, who had been captured by the Comanches as a child in 1836. (Full article...)

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

Did you know...

... 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 Chinese-born Joseph Pierce enlisted as a Union Army soldier, fought at the Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War, and was made a corporal?
... 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 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 Byron Root Pierce was Michigan's last living Civil War general?
... that after the Little Rock campaign, Union forces held three-quarters of Arkansas?