Search results
Dec 9, 2011 · Though often overlooked, more than 50,000 British citizens served in various capacities in the American Civil War. Historian Amanda Foreman looked at their personal writings and tells the story...
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union [e] ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), which was formed in 1861 by states that had seceded from the Union.
Apr 4, 2013 · During the American Civil War people from many countries fought for either the Union or Confederacy. They included immigrants from all over Europe including Scandinavia, Germany, France and Hungary. Men from the United Kingdom also fought in the conflict, the vast majority on the Union side.
- Overview
- Prelude to war
The American Civil War was the culmination of the struggle between the advocates and opponents of slavery that dated from the founding of the United States. This sectional conflict between Northern states and slaveholding Southern states had been tempered by a series of political compromises, but by the late 1850s the issue of the extension of slavery to the western states had reached a boiling point. The election of Abraham Lincoln, a member of the antislavery Republican Party, as president in 1860 precipitated the secession of 11 Southern states, leading to a civil war.
Who won the American Civil War?
The Union won the American Civil War. The war effectively ended in April 1865 when Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his troops to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia. The final surrender of Confederate troops on the western periphery came in Galveston, Texas, on June 2.
How many people died during the Civil War?
It is estimated that from 752,000 to 851,000 soldiers died during the American Civil War. This figure represents approximately 2 percent of the American population in 1860. The Battle of Gettysburg, one of the bloodiest engagements during the Civil War, resulted in about 7,000 deaths and 51,000 total casualties.
Who were the most important figures in the American Civil War?
The secession of the Southern states (in chronological order, South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina) in 1860–61 and the ensuing outbreak of armed hostilities were the culmination of decades of growing sectional friction over slavery. Between 1815 and 1861 the economy of the Northern states was rapidly modernizing and diversifying. Although agriculture—mostly smaller farms that relied on free labour—remained the dominant sector in the North, industrialization had taken root there. Moreover, Northerners had invested heavily in an expansive and varied transportation system that included canals, roads, steamboats, and railroads; in financial industries such as banking and insurance; and in a large communications network that featured inexpensive, widely available newspapers, magazines, and books, along with the telegraph.
By contrast, the Southern economy was based principally on large farms (plantations) that produced commercial crops such as cotton and that relied on slaves as the main labour force. Rather than invest in factories or railroads as Northerners had done, Southerners invested their money in slaves—even more than in land; by 1860, 84 percent of the capital invested in manufacturing was invested in the free (nonslaveholding) states. Yet, to Southerners, as late as 1860, this appeared to be a sound business decision. The price of cotton, the South’s defining crop, had skyrocketed in the 1850s, and the value of slaves—who were, after all, property—rose commensurately. By 1860 the per capita wealth of Southern whites was twice that of Northerners, and three-fifths of the wealthiest individuals in the country were Southerners.
The extension of slavery into new territories and states had been an issue as far back as the Northwest Ordinance of 1784. When the slave territory of Missouri sought statehood in 1818, Congress debated for two years before arriving upon the Missouri Compromise of 1820. This was the first of a series of political deals that resulted from arguments between pro-slavery and antislavery forces over the expansion of the “peculiar institution,” as it was known, into the West. The end of the Mexican-American War in 1848 and the roughly 500,000 square miles (1.3 million square km) of new territory that the United States gained as a result of it added a new sense of urgency to the dispute. More and more Northerners, driven by a sense of morality or an interest in protecting free labour, came to believe, in the 1850s, that bondage needed to be eradicated. White Southerners feared that limiting the expansion of slavery would consign the institution to certain death. Over the course of the decade, the two sides became increasingly polarized and politicians less able to contain the dispute through compromise. When Abraham Lincoln, the candidate of the explicitly antislavery Republican Party, won the 1860 presidential election, seven Southern states (South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas) carried out their threat and seceded, organizing as the Confederate States of America.
Britannica Quiz
Reconstruction Era Quiz
In the early morning hours of April 12, 1861, rebels opened fire on Fort Sumter, at the entrance to the harbour of Charleston, South Carolina. Curiously, this first encounter of what would be the bloodiest war in the history of the United States claimed no victims. After a 34-hour bombardment, Maj. Robert Anderson surrendered his command of about 85 soldiers to some 5,500 besieging Confederate troops under P.G.T. Beauregard. Within weeks, four more Southern states (Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina) left the Union to join the Confederacy.
Nov 12, 2013 · At the beginning of the Civil War, 22 million people lived in the North and 9 million people (nearly 4 million of whom were slaves) lived in the South. The North also had more money, more factories, more horses, more railroads, and more farmland.
- The Civil War, also known as “The War Between the States,” was fought between the United States of America and the Confederate States of America, a...
- Abraham Lincoln grew up in a log cabin in Kentucky. He worked as a shopkeeper and a lawyer before entering politics in the 1840s. Alarmed by his an...
- Native Americans have lived in North America for more than 12,000 years. Around 400 years ago, people from the Netherlands, England, Spain, and Fra...
- Slavery was the law of the land, north and south, until the early 19th century. It was concentrated in the southern states, where slaves were used...
- When the southern states seceded from the Union, there were still a few forts on southern soil that were manned by United States soldiers. Rather t...
- The Civil War devastated the Confederate states. The presence of vast armies throughout the countryside meant that livestock, crops, and other stap...
- After four years of conflict, the last major Confederate armies surrendered to the United States in April of 1865. The war bankrupted the South, le...
- The southern states seceded to prevent the abolition of slavery. During the war, Abraham Lincoln freed some slaves and allowed freedmen to join the...
- The United States government has identified 384 battles that had a significant impact on the larger war. Many of these battlefields have been devel...
Important people during the American Civil War included Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, whose election prompted the secession of Southern states; Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy; Ulysses S. Grant, the most successful and prominent general of the Union; and Robert E. Lee, Grant’s counterpart in the ...
Apr 1, 2019 · One might at first find it inspiring to read the gallant and generous 1874 remarks of Robert Brown Elliott, a black congressman representing South Carolina, as he defended civil rights against...
People also ask
Who fought in the American Civil War?
Who was a volunteer in the American Civil War?
Who was Robert Brown Elliott?
Why was the American Civil War important?
Who won the American Civil War?
How many soldiers died in the Civil War?
