American Civil War: Causes and Overview

American Civil War

• The American Civil War was fought between the Union (the North) and the Confederacy (the South) from April 12, 1861, to May 26, 1865.
• The war was sparked by a dispute over whether slavery should be allowed to expand into the nation's western territories.

Causes of the War

• Decades of political controversy over slavery led to the war.
• Abraham Lincoln's victory in the 1860 presidential election opposed the expansion of slavery.

Secession and the Start of the War

• Seven southern slave states seceded from the United States and formed the Confederacy after Lincoln's victory.
• The Confederacy seized U.S. forts and federal assets within their borders.
• The war began on April 12, 1861, when the Confederacy bombarded Fort Sumter in South Carolina.

The War

• Four more southern states seceded after the war began.
• The Union made significant gains in the Western Theater in 1861-1862.
• The abolition of slavery became a Union war goal on January 1, 1863, when Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.
• Over 3.5 million slaves in rebel states were declared free by the Emancipation Proclamation.
• The Union destroyed the Confederacy's river navy by the summer of 1862.
• The successful 1863 Union siege of Vicksburg split the Confederacy in two at the Mississippi River.
• Confederate General Robert E. Lee's incursion north failed at the Battle of Gettysburg.

Turning Points and Surrender

• General Ulysses S. Grant's command of all Union armies in 1864 led to the fall of Atlanta and the March to the Sea.
• The last significant battles raged around the ten-month Siege of Petersburg.
• The Confederates abandoned Richmond, and on April 9, 1865, Lee surrendered to Grant following the Battle of Appomattox Court House.
• Lee's surrender set off a wave of Confederate surrenders, with the last military department of the Confederacy disbanding on May 26, 1865.

Aftermath

• Much of the South's infrastructure was destroyed by the end of the war.
• The Confederacy collapsed, slavery was abolished, and four million enslaved black people were freed.
• The war-torn nation entered the Reconstruction era to rebuild the country and grant civil rights to freed slaves.

Significance

• The American Civil War was one of the first wars to use industrial warfare.
• The war is one of the most extensively studied and written about episodes in U.S. history.