Portal:American Civil War

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The American Civil War Portal

Reenactor discharging his musket

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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Fort Greble was an American Civil War-era Union fortification constructed as part of the defenses of Washington, D.C. during that war. Named for First Lieutenant John Trout Greble, the first West Point graduate killed in the U.S. Civil War, it protected the junction of the Anacostia and Potomac rivers, and from its position on a bluff in the Congress Heights, precluded any bombardment of the Washington Navy Yard and southeastern portions of the city. It was supported by Fort Carroll to the northeast and Fort Foote to the south. It never fired a shot during the war, and after a brief stint as a U.S. Army Signal Corps training facility, was abandoned and the land returned to its natural state. As of July 2007, the site of the fort is a community park. (Full article...)

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Grand Parade of the States

During the American Civil War, Missouri was a hotly contested border state populated by both Union and Confederate sympathizers. It sent armies, generals, and supplies to both sides, maintained dual governments, and endured a bloody neighbor-against-neighbor intrastate war within the larger national war.

A slave state since statehood in 1821, Missouri's geographic position in the central region of the country and at the rural edge of the American frontier ensured that it remained a divisive battleground for competing Northern and Southern ideologies in the years preceding the war. When the war began in 1861, it became clear that control of the Mississippi River and the burgeoning economic hub of St. Louis would make Missouri a strategic territory in the Trans-Mississippi Theater. (Full article...)

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Hindman in uniform, c. 1862

Thomas Carmichael Hindman Jr. (January 28, 1828 – September 28, 1868) was an American lawyer, politician, and a senior officer of the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. Born in Knoxville, Tennessee, he later moved to Mississippi and became involved in politics. He served in the Mexican–American War from 1846 to 1848. Hindman practiced law and in 1853 was elected to the Mississippi House of Representatives. After his term expired in 1854, he moved to Helena, Arkansas where there were more opportunities for his political ambitions. Hindman opposed the Know-Nothing party and the ruling Conway-Johnson dynasty. Elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1858, he supported slavery (and was a slaveholder himself) and secession. During Reconstruction he was assassinated.

Once the American Civil War began in 1861 and Arkansas seceded, Hindman joined the Confederate States Army, first commanding the 2nd Arkansas Infantry Regiment, then a brigade, and then an ad-hoc division at the Battle of Shiloh in April 1862; he was wounded during the battle. Following Shiloh, Hindman was promoted to major general and sent to the Trans-Mississippi Department to command Arkansas, Missouri, the Indian Territory, and part of Louisiana. As commander of the region, Hindman's policies were sometimes legally questionable and were unpopular, although they were successful in building up the district from a basically indefensible state. Public outcry led to Hindman's removal from his regional command. He was defeated at the Battle of Prairie Grove in December. Transferred to the Army of Tennessee in 1863, he led a division at the Battle of Chickamauga in September, where he was again wounded. After recovering, he commanded a division during the early stages of the Atlanta campaign although he wished to be transferred elsewhere. (Full article...)

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

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 Enoch Marvin Banks resigned from the University of Florida because of public outrage over his belief that the American Civil War was caused by slavery?
... that CSS Beaufort fought USS Albatross in the first ship-versus-ship action of the American Civil War?
... that after the Little Rock campaign, Union forces held three-quarters of Arkansas?
... 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?