Portal:American Civil War

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The American Civil War Portal

Specifications of the third Confederate national flag

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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Ozark serving in the Mississippi River Squadron in 1864–65

USS Ozark was a single-turreted river monitor built for the United States Navy during the American Civil War. The ship served in the Mississippi River Squadron during the war, and participated in the Red River Campaign shortly after she was commissioned in early 1864. Ozark patrolled the Mississippi River and its tributaries after the end of the campaign for the rest of the war. She was decommissioned after the war and sold in late 1865.

The ship's activities or owner are not known after her sale, but Ozark transported Federal troops and New Orleans police attempting to apprehend the white supremacists who killed numerous blacks during the Colfax Massacre in 1873. She ferried witnesses back and forth to their homes on the Red River during the subsequent trials in 1874. Her ultimate fate is unknown. (Full article...)

Grand Parade of the States

The American Civil War significantly affected Tennessee, with every county witnessing combat. During the War, Tennessee was a Confederate state, and the last state to officially secede from the Union to join the Confederacy. Tennessee seceded in protest to President Lincoln's April 15 Proclamation calling forth 75,000 members of state militias to suppress the rebellion. Although Tennessee provided a large number of troops for the Confederacy, it would also provide more soldiers for the Union Army than any other state within the Confederacy.

In February 1862, some of the war's first serious fighting took place along the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers, recognized as major military highways, and mountain passes such as Cumberland Gap were keenly competed-for by both sides. The Battle of Shiloh and the fighting along the Mississippi brought glory to the then little-known Ulysses S. Grant, while his area commander Henry Halleck was rewarded with a promotion to General-in-Chief. The Tullahoma campaign, led by William Rosecrans, drove the Confederates from Middle Tennessee so quickly that they did not take many casualties, and were strong enough to defeat Rosecrans soon afterward. At Nashville in December 1864, George Thomas routed the Army of Tennessee under John Bell Hood, the last major battle fought in the state. (Full article...)

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Chester Alan Arthur (October 5, 1829 – November 18, 1886) was an American politician who served as the 21st president of the United States from 1881 to 1885. He was a Republican lawyer from New York who briefly served as the 20th vice president under President James A. Garfield. Arthur assumed the presidency after Garfield's death on September 19, 1881, and served the remainder of his term until March 4, 1885.

Arthur was born in Fairfield, Vermont, grew up in upstate New York and practiced law in New York City. He served as quartermaster general of the New York Militia during the American Civil War. Following the war, he devoted more time to New York Republican politics and quickly rose in Senator Roscoe Conkling's political organization. President Ulysses S. Grant appointed him as Collector of the Port of New York in 1871, and he was an important supporter of Conkling and the Stalwart faction of the Republican Party. In 1878, following bitter disputes between Conkling and President Rutherford B. Hayes over control of patronage in New York, Hayes fired Arthur as part of a plan to reform the federal patronage system. In June 1880, the extended contest between Grant, identified with the Stalwarts, and James G. Blaine, the candidate of the Half-Breed faction, led to the compromise selection of Ohio's Garfield for president. Republicans then nominated Arthur for vice president to balance the ticket geographically and to placate Stalwarts disappointed by Grant's defeat. Garfield and Arthur won the 1880 presidential election and took office in March 1881. Four months into his term, Garfield was shot by an assassin; he died 11 weeks later, and Arthur assumed the presidency. (Full article...)

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

Did you know...

... 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?
... that CSS Beaufort fought USS Albatross in the first ship-versus-ship action of the American Civil War?
... that Dubuque, Arkansas, was destroyed in the American Civil War and is now covered by the waters of Bull Shoals Lake?
... 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 Emma Dean Powell received a pass from General Ulysses S. Grant to accompany her husband to battlefield camps during the American Civil War after he lost his arm?