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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During the Baltimore Riot, the 6th Massachusetts became the first Union unit to take casualties in action on April 19, 1861.

The 6th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Militia was a peacetime infantry regiment that was activated for federal service in the Union army for three separate terms during the American Civil War (1861-1865). The regiment gained notoriety as the first unit in the Union Army to suffer fatal casualties in action during the Civil War in the Baltimore Riot and the first militia unit to arrive in Washington D.C., in response to President Abraham Lincoln's initial call for 75,000 troops. Private Luther C. Ladd of the 6th Massachusetts is often referred to as the first Union soldier killed in action during the war.

In the years immediately preceding the war and during its first enlistment, the regiment consisted primarily of companies from Middlesex County. During its first term of service, four out of ten companies of the regiment were from Lowell, Massachusetts. Colonel Edward F. Jones commanded the regiment during its first term. He later commanded the 26th Massachusetts and was awarded the honorary grade of brevet brigadier general. During its second and third terms of service, the unit was commanded by Colonel Albert S. Follansbee. (Full article...)

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Grand Parade of the States

Alabama was central to the Civil War, with the secession convention at Montgomery, the birthplace of the Confederacy, inviting other slaveholding states to form a southern republic, during January–March 1861, and to develop new state constitutions. The 1861 Alabaman constitution granted citizenship to current U.S. residents, but prohibited import duties (tariffs) on foreign goods, limited a standing military, and as a final issue, opposed emancipation by any nation, but urged protection of African-American slaves with trials by jury, and reserved the power to regulate or prohibit the African slave trade. The secession convention invited all slaveholding states to secede, but only 7 Cotton States of the Lower South formed the Confederacy with Alabama, while the majority of slave states were in the Union. Congress had voted to protect the institution of slavery by passing the Corwin Amendment on March 4, 1861, but it was never ratified.

Even before secession, the governor of Alabama Andrew B. Moore defied the United States government by seizing the two federal forts at the Gulf Coast (forts Morgan and Gaines) and the arsenal at Mount Vernon in January 1861 to distribute weapons to Alabama towns. The peaceful seizure of Alabama forts preceded by three months the bombing and capture of the Union's Fort Sumter (SC) on April 12, 1861. (Full article...)

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Anderson c. 1864

William T. Anderson (c. 1840 – October 26, 1864), known by the nickname "Bloody Bill" Anderson, was a soldier who was one of the deadliest and most notorious Confederate guerrilla leaders in the American Civil War. Anderson led a band of volunteer partisan raiders who targeted Union loyalists and federal soldiers in the states of Missouri and Kansas.

Raised by a family of Southerners in Kansas, Anderson began to support himself by stealing and selling horses in 1862. After a former friend and secessionist turned Union loyalist judge killed his father, Anderson killed the judge and fled to Missouri. There he robbed travelers and killed several Union soldiers. In early 1863 he joined Quantrill's Raiders, a group of Confederate guerrillas which operated along the Kansas–Missouri border. He became a skilled bushwhacker, earning the trust of the group's leaders, William Quantrill and George M. Todd. Anderson's bushwhacking marked him as a dangerous man and eventually led the Union to imprison his sisters. After a building collapse in the makeshift jail in Kansas City, Missouri, left one of them dead in custody and the other permanently maimed, Anderson devoted himself to revenge. He took a leading role in the Lawrence Massacre and later took part in the Battle of Baxter Springs, both in 1863. (Full article...)

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

Did you know...

... that the Confederate States Navy ordered six Squib-class torpedo boats from England, but they were never delivered?
... that Romeo and Juliet both served in the Union Navy?
... that some historians believe that Steele's Greenville expedition marked a shift in the Union's war policy?
... that singer Frank Croxton performed a duet with his father for the unveiling of a monument to a Confederate States Army general?
... 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 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?