Portal:American Civil War

Portal topics: Activities; Culture; Geography; Health; History; Mathematics; Nature; People; Philosophy; Religion; Society; Technology; Random portal

The American Civil War Portal

Union troops build pontoon bridges

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)

Refresh with new selections below (purge)

Featured article

A sepia wash drawing of CSS Atlanta by R.G. Skerrett

Atlanta was a casemate ironclad that served in the Confederate and Union Navies during the American Civil War. She was converted from a British-built blockade runner named Fingal by the Confederacy after she made one run to Savannah, Georgia. After several failed attempts to attack Union blockaders, the ship was captured by two Union monitors in 1863 when she ran aground. Atlanta was floated off, repaired, and rearmed, serving in the Union Navy for the rest of the war. She spent most of her time deployed on the James River supporting Union forces there. The ship was decommissioned in 1865 and placed in reserve. Several years after the end of the war, Atlanta was sold to Haiti, but was lost at sea in December 1869 on her delivery voyage. (Full article...)

More featured articles

Grand Parade of the States

At the outbreak of the American Civil War in April 1861, Kansas was the newest U.S. state, admitted just months earlier in January. The state had formally rejected slavery by popular vote and vowed to fight on the side of the Union, though ideological divisions with neighboring Missouri, a slave state, had led to violent conflict in previous years and persisted for the duration of the war.

While Kansas was a rural frontier state, distant from the major theaters of war, and its Unionist government was never seriously threatened by Confederate military forces, several engagements did occur within its borders, as well as countless raids and skirmishes between local irregulars, including the Lawrence Massacre by pro-Confederate guerrillas under William Quantrill in August 1863. Later the state witnessed the defeat of Confederate General Sterling Price by Union General Alfred Pleasonton at the Battle of Mine Creek, the second-largest cavalry action of the war. Additionally, some of the Union's first Black regiments would form in the state of Kansas. These contributions would inform the complicated race relations in the state during the reconstruction era (1865–1877). (Full article...)

More states articles

Featured biography

Joseph Benson Foraker (July 5, 1846 – May 10, 1917) was an American politician of the Republican Party who served as the 37th governor of Ohio from 1886 to 1890 and as a United States senator from Ohio from 1897 until 1909.

Foraker was born in rural Ohio; he enlisted at the age of 16 in the Union Army during the American Civil War. He fought for almost three years, attaining the rank of captain. After the war, he was a member of Cornell University's first graduating class, and became a lawyer. He was elected a judge in 1879 and became well known as a political speaker. He was defeated in his first run for the governorship in 1883, but was elected two years later. As Ohio governor, he built an alliance with the Republican Party "boss" Mark Hanna, but fell out with him in 1888. Foraker was defeated for reelection in 1889, but was elected U.S. senator by the Ohio General Assembly in 1896, after an unsuccessful bid for that office in 1892. (Full article...)

More featured biographies

WikiProjects

edit

Featured picture

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

Did you know...

... that Carter Moore Braxton fought for the Confederacy throughout the American Civil War and, according to one report, had seven horses killed under him but avoided any wounds?
... that according to one historian, James S. Rains made a "significant contribution to the Confederate war effort" by getting drunk?
... that Justus H. Rathbone, founder of the Knights of Pythias, served as a hospital steward during the American Civil War?
... that after the Little Rock campaign, Union forces held three-quarters of Arkansas?
... 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 the Confederate States Navy ordered six Squib-class torpedo boats from England, but they were never delivered?