Portal:American Civil War

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Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery

Graves of soldiers at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery

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)

   Featured article

Bombardment and capture of Fort Henry, Tenn,
1860s lithograph by Currier and Ives

The Battle of Fort Henry was fought on February 6, 1862, in Stewart County, Tennessee, during the American Civil War. It was the first important victory for the Union and Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in the Western Theater.

On February 4 and 5, Grant landed two divisions just north of Fort Henry on the Tennessee River. (The troops serving under Grant were the nucleus of the Union's successful Army of the Tennessee, although that name was not yet in use.) Grant's plan was to advance upon the fort on February 6 while it was being simultaneously attacked by Union gunboats commanded by Flag Officer Andrew Hull Foote. A combination of accurate and effective naval gunfire, heavy rain, and the poor siting of the fort, nearly inundated by rising river waters, caused its commander, Brig. Gen. Lloyd Tilghman, to surrender to Foote before the Union Army arrived. (Full article...)

   Grand Parade of the States

Georgia was one of the original seven slave states that formed the Confederate States of America in February 1861, triggering the U.S. Civil War. The state governor, Democrat Joseph E. Brown, wanted locally raised troops to be used only for the defence of Georgia, in defiance of Confederate president Jefferson Davis, who wanted to deploy them on other battlefronts. When the Union blockade prevented Georgia from exporting its plentiful cotton in exchange for key imports, Brown ordered farmers to grow food instead, but the breakdown of transport systems led to desperate shortages.

There was not much fighting in Georgia until September 1863, when Confederates under Braxton Bragg defeated William S. Rosecrans at Chickamauga Creek. In May 1864, William T. Sherman started pursuing the Confederates towards Atlanta, which he captured in September, in advance of his March to the Sea. This six-week campaign destroyed much of the civilian infrastructure of Georgia, decisively shortening the war. When news of the march reached Robert E. Lee's army in Virginia, whole Georgian regiments deserted, feeling they were needed at home. The Battle of Columbus, fought on the Georgia-Alabama border on April 16, 1865, is reckoned by some criteria to have been the last battle of the war. (Full article...)

   Featured biography

Henry Cornelius Burnett (October 25, 1825 – October 1, 1866) was an American politician who served as a Confederate States senator from Kentucky from 1862 to 1865. From 1855 to 1861, Burnett served four terms in the United States House of Representatives. A lawyer by profession, Burnett had held only one public office—circuit court clerk—before being elected to Congress. He represented Kentucky's 1st congressional district immediately prior to the Civil War. This district contained the entire Jackson Purchase region of the state, which was more sympathetic to the Confederate cause than any other area of Kentucky. Burnett promised the voters of his district that he would have President Abraham Lincoln arraigned for treason. Unionist newspaper editor George D. Prentice described Burnett as "a big, burly, loud-mouthed fellow who is forever raising points of order and objections, to embarrass the Republicans in the House".

Besides championing the secession in Congress, Burnett also worked within Kentucky to bolster the state's support of the Confederacy. He presided over a sovereignty convention in Russellville in 1861 that formed a Confederate government for the state. The delegates to this convention chose Burnett to travel to Richmond, Virginia to secure Kentucky's admission to the Confederacy. Burnett also raised a Confederate regiment at Hopkinsville, Kentucky, and briefly served in the Confederate States Army. Camp Burnett, a Confederate recruiting post two miles west of Clinton in Hickman County, Kentucky, was named after him. (Full article...)

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   Featured picture

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

   Did you know...

• ... that singer Frank Croxton performed a duet with his father for the unveiling of a monument to a Confederate States Army general?
• ... 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 CSS Beaufort fought USS Albatross in the first ship-versus-ship action of the American Civil War?
• ... that the only functioning secondary school in Mississippi during the American Civil War was founded by Thomas S. Gathright?
• ... 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?

   Subcategories

American Civil War

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Aftermath of the American Civil War

Confederate States of America

Cultural history of the American Civil War

Economic history of the American Civil War

Historiography of the American Civil War

Military awards and decorations of the American Civil War

Military history of the American Civil War

Military units and formations of the American Civil War

American Civil War on the National Register of Historic Places

Origins of the American Civil War

People of the American Civil War

Politics of the American Civil War

Secession crisis of 1860–61

Social history of the American Civil War

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Union (American Civil War)

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Works about the American Civil War

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Attention needed

...to referencing and citation  • ...to coverage and accuracy  • ...to structure  • ...to grammar  • ...to supporting materials 

Popular pages

Full list

Cleanup needed

The West Tennessee Raids

Requested articles

James Ashby (soldier) • Bluffton expedition • Benjamin D. Fearing • Charles A. Hickman • Richard Henry Jackson • James B. Speers • Charles S. Steedman • Battle of Barton's Station • Lawrence P. Graham • Thomas John Lucas • Daniel Henry Rucker • James Hughes Stokes • Frederick S. Sturmbaugh • Davis Tillson • Action at Nineveh (currently a redirect) • International response to the American Civil War • Spain and the American Civil War • Savannah Campaign Confederate order of battle • Native Americans in the American Civil War (currently disambiguation after deletion) • 1st Battalion, Mississippi Mounted Rifles (Union) • Battle of Lafayette • Requested American Civil War Medal of Honor recipients

Expansion needed

Battle of Boonsborough • Battle of Guard Hill • Battle of Rice's Station • Battle of Simmon's Bluff • Battle of Summit Point • Charleston Arsenal • Edenton Bell Battery • First Battle of Dalton • Blackshear Prison • Edwin Forbes • Hiram B. Granbury • Henry Thomas Harrison • Louis Hébert (colonel) • Benjamin G. Humphreys • Maynard Carbine • Hezekiah G. Spruill • Smith carbine • Edward C. Walthall • Confederate States Secretary of the Navy • Confederate States Secretary of the Treasury • David Henry Williams • Battle of Rome Cross Roads • Delaware in the American Civil War • Ironclad Board • United States Military Railroad • Kansas in the American Civil War • Rufus Daggett • Ebenezer Magoffin • Confederate Quartermaster-General's Department • First Corps, Army of Northern Virginia • Francis Laurens Vinton • Henry Maury • Smith's Expedition to Tupelo • Other American Civil War battle stubs • Other American Civil War stubs

Images needed

Battle of Lone Jack • Preston Pond, Jr. • Melancthon Smith

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 • Second Battle of Fort Sumter • Samuel Benton

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