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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USS Roanoke as a steam frigate

USS Roanoke was a wooden-hulled Merrimack-class screw frigate built for the United States Navy in the mid-1850s. She served as flagship of the Home Squadron in the late 1850s and captured several Confederate ships after the start of the American Civil War in 1861. The ship was converted into an ironclad monitor during 1862–63; the first ship with more than two gun turrets in history. Her conversion was not very successful as she rolled excessively, and the weight of her armor and turrets strained her hull. Her deep draft meant that she could not operate off shallow Confederate ports and she was relegated to harbor defense at Hampton Roads, Virginia for the duration of the war. Roanoke was placed in reserve after the war and sold for scrap in 1883. (Full article...)

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Grand Parade of the States

Texas declared its secession from the Union on February 1, 1861, and joined the Confederate States on March 2, 1861, after it had replaced its governor, Sam Houston, who had refused to take an oath of allegiance to the Confederacy. As with those of other states, the Declaration of Secession was not recognized by the US government at Washington, DC. Some Texan military units fought in the Civil War east of the Mississippi River, but Texas was more useful for supplying soldiers and horses for the Confederate Army. Texas' supply role lasted until mid-1863, when Union gunboats started to control the Mississippi River, which prevented large transfers of men, horses, or cattle. Some cotton was sold in Mexico, but most of the crop became useless because of the Union's naval blockade of Galveston, Houston, and other ports. (Full article...)

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Lawrence Sullivan "Sul" Ross (September 27, 1838 – January 3, 1898) was the 19th governor of Texas, a Confederate States Army general during the American Civil War, and the 4th president of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas, now called Texas A&M University.

Ross was raised in the Republic of Texas, which was later annexed to the United States. Much of his childhood was spent on the frontier, where his family founded the town of Waco. Ross attended Baylor University (then located in Independence, Texas) and Florence Wesleyan University in Florence, Alabama. On one of his summer breaks, he suffered severe injuries while fighting Comanches. After graduation, Ross joined the Texas Rangers, and in 1860, led Texas Rangers in the Battle of Pease River, where federal troops recaptured Cynthia Ann Parker, who had been captured by the Comanches as a child in 1836. (Full article...)

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

Did you know...

... that according to one historian, James S. Rains made a "significant contribution to the Confederate war effort" by getting drunk?
... 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 some Confederate bullets were sourced from a silver mine?
... that the only functioning secondary school in Mississippi during the American Civil War was founded by Thomas S. Gathright?
... that some historians believe that Steele's Greenville expedition marked a shift in the Union's war policy?
... that Chinese-born Joseph Pierce enlisted as a Union Army soldier, fought at the Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War, and was made a corporal?