The problem of slavery was never clearly settled by the Founding Fathers, leading to decades of discussion, compromise and growing unrest about the future of the institution. The new republic remained divided on the central question of slavery, and by the mid 19th century, the culture and economy of the Northern and Southern states appeared very different to inhabitants above and below what was termed the Mason—Dixon line, division between Pennsylvania and Maryland, marking the border between free and slave states.
As the United States opened up the west of the continent from the s, debates raged over whether the new territories would be admitted to the nation as free or slave states. Increasingly, the South believed the North was blocking any westward expansion of slavery.
Violent encounters, such as at that at Harper's Ferry , and, crucially, the shots fired on Fort Sumter 12 April , led to war, entangling other questions, particularly that of states rights, in a bitter dispute between the relatively industrialised North and the plantation-based society of the South.
Historians continue to debate the balance of causes underlying the origins of the Civil War, but the issue of slavery remains central in any explanation of the great disunion which almost destroyed the United States.
It is almost impossible to imagine the Civil War erupting without the passions aroused among Northern abolitionists and those in the South who saw slave-holding as central to their way of life. The abolition of slavery itself was never a direct Union war aim until when Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation , declaring freedom for over three million slaves in the South.
While the Civil War did give the country, as Lincoln said, a 'new birth of freedom', it cast a long shadow on the history of the South and its legacy shaped much of the subsequent development of the American nation. The origins of the Civil War remain a matter of great debate, with a strand of Southern collective memory emphasising the belligerence of the North and states rights, rather than the issue of slavery.
Lee's early war career got off to a rocky start, but he found his stride in June of after he assumed command of what he dubbed the Army of Northern Virginia. Grant, on the other hand, found early success in the war but was haunted by rumors of alcoholism.
By , the two men were by far the best generals on their respective sides. In March of , Grant was promoted to lieutenant general and brought to the Eastern Theater of the war, where he and Lee engaged in a relentless campaign from May of to Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House eleven months later.
The war bankrupted much of the South, left its roads, farms, and factories in ruins, and all but wiped out an entire generation of men who wore the blue and the gray. More than , men died in the Civil War, more than any other war in American history. The southern states were occupied by Union soldiers, rebuilt, and gradually re-admitted to the United States over the course of twenty difficult years known as the Reconstruction Era.
It was clear to many that it was only a matter of time before slavery would be fully abolished. As the war drew to a close, but before the southern states were re-admitted to the United States, the northern states added the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the Constitution. The amendments are also known as the "Civil War Amendments. The 14th Amendment has played an ongoing role in American society as different groups of citizens continue to lobby for equal treatment by the government.
The United States government has identified battles that had a significant impact on the larger war. Many of these battlefields have been developed—turned into shopping malls, pizza parlors, housing developments, etc.
Since the end of the Civil War, veterans and other citizens have struggled to preserve the fields on which Americans fought and died. The American Battlefield Trust and its partners have preserved tens of thousands of acres of battlefield land. Civil War Article. The Civil War profoundly shaped the United States as we know it today. Nevertheless, the war remains one of the most misunderstood events in American history.
Here are ten basic facts you need to know about America's defining struggle. Abraham Lincoln in Fact 3: The issues of slavery and central power divided the United States.
Fact 8: The North won the Civil War. A battle-scarred house in Atlanta, Georgia. Fact Many Civil War battlefields are threatened by development. Topic s :. Quick Facts. Related Articles. War of Article. The war took a brutal toll.
According to statistics compiled by Live TV. This Day In History. History Vault. Recommended for you. How the Troubles Began in Northern Ireland.
Union Military Leaders. Fort Sumter. Confederate Leaders. Battles of Bull Run. Battle of Antietam. Civil War Artifacts. Civil War Sketchbook. Civil War Technology. American Civil War History. Spying in the Civil War Though neither the Union nor the Confederacy had a formal military intelligence network during the Civil War, each side obtained crucial information from spying or espionage operations.
Women in the Civil War In many ways, the coming of the Civil War challenged the ideology of Victorian domesticity that had defined the lives of men and women in the antebellum era. See More.
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