
{| border="1" width="300" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" align="right" style="margin-left:1em;margin-bottom:1em" |colspan="2"| |- !colspan="2" bgcolor="#ffcccc"| Military history of the United States
Military history of the Confederate States |- |Conflict||American Civil War |- |Date||1861–1865 |- |Place||Principally in the southern United States; also in eastern, central and southwestern regions |- |Result||Defeat of seceding CSA |- !colspan="2"|Battles of the American Civil War |- |colspan="2"| {| border="1" width="300" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" !colspan="2" bgcolor="#ffcccc"|Combatants |- | width="50%" valign="top"|United States
''Flag of the United States 1861–1863. 34 stars, after the admission of Kansas to the Union''
''1863–1864. 35 stars, after the admission of West Virginia).''
''1864–1865. 36 stars, after the admission of Nevada.''
| width="50%" valign="top"|Confederate States of America
''flags of the Confederate States of America to May 1863''
''May 1863
''
''Briefly from March 1865'' |- !colspan="2" |Leaders |- |Abraham Lincoln |Jefferson Davis |- !colspan="2" |Strength |- |2,803,300 |1,064,200 |- !colspan="2" |Casualties |- |KIA: 110,070
Total dead: 359,528
Wounded: 275,175 |KIA: 74,524
Total dead: 198,524
Wounded: 137,000+ |} |} The American Civil War was fought in the United States from 1861 until 1865 between the United States – forces coming mostly from the 23 Northern United States of the United States – and the newly-formed Confederate States of America, which consisted of 11 Southern United States that had declared their secession. There were various names used to describe the war itself, its combatants, armies, and battles (see the article Naming the American Civil War). ==The division of the country== Seven states seceded shortly after U.S. presidential election, 1860 – even before he was inaugurated. They were South Carolina (December 20, 1860), Mississippi (January 9, 1861), Florida (January 10, 1861), Alabama (January 11, 1861), Georgia (U.S. state) (January 19, 1861), Louisiana (January 26, 1861), and Texas (February 1, 1861). These Deep South States, where slavery and Plantation agriculture were most dominant, formed the Confederate States of America (February 4, 1861), with Jefferson Davis as President, and with a Constitution closely modeled on the U.S. Constitution (see also Confederate States Constitution). After the Battle of Fort Sumter, South Carolina, Lincoln called for troops from all remaining states to recover the forts, resulting in the secession of four more states: Virginia (April 17, 1861), Arkansas (May 6, 1861), North Carolina (May 20, 1861), and Tennessee (June 8, 1861). Four "slave states" did not secede, and one seceding state split; these five are known as the Border States (Civil War). Delaware, which had voted for John C. Breckinridge, had few slaves and never considered secession. Maryland also voted for Breckinridge; its legislature rejected secession (April 27, 1861), but only after the Baltimore riot of 1861 and other events had prompted a federal declaration of martial law. Missouri and Kentucky remained in the Union, but in both, factions organized "secessions", which were recognized by the Confederate States of America. In Missouri, the State government under Governor Claiborne F. Jackson, a southern sympathizer, evacuated the state capital of Jefferson City when it was attacked by northern Gen. Nathaniel Lyon on June 14, 1861. The elected Missouri government, under Jackson, met Government in exile at the town of Neosho, Missouri and adopted a secession ordinance that was recognized by the Confederacy on October 30, 1861 (see the Missouri secession controversy). Meanwhile the Union organized a competing government of the state by calling a constitutional convention (political meeting), originally convened to vote on secession. Although Kentucky did not secede, for a time, it declared itself neutral in the conflict, and southern sympathizers organized a secession convention, and swore in a Confederate Governor, during a brief sojourn by the Confederate Army. Residents of the northwestern counties of Virginia organized a secession from Virginia and entered the Union (with a plan for gradual emancipation) in 1863 as West Virginia. The southern half of the federal territory of New Mexico voted to secede, and was accepted into the Confederacy as the Territory of Arizona (not shown on the map), with its capital in Mesilla (now New Mexico). History_of_California#California_and_the_Civil_War was a free state and a part of the Union. Lincoln had won a plurality there, but there was a number of Southern Sympathizers. 28% of its votes went to the Southern Democrat candidate, John C. Breckinridge. California was asked to keep its soldiers under state control and were used to keep the land routes between the Mississippi and the state open. California gold helped finance the Union war effort.[http://www.militarymuseum.org/HistoryCW.html] ==Origins of the conflict== ''For details see the main article Origins of the American Civil War. See also the Timeline of events leading to the American Civil War.'' [[Image:Slavepatrols.jpg|275px|thumb|Slave "patrollers," mostly poor whites, were given the authority to stop, search, whip, maim, and even kill any slave who violated the slave codes. In their agitation against the South, abolitionists cited the slave codes as example of the barbarism of Southern society. Above a woodcut from the abolitionist ''Anti-Slavery Almanac'' (1839) depicts the capture of a fugitive slave by a slave patrol.]] On the eve of the Civil War, the United States was a nation divided into four quite distinct regions: the Northeast, with a growing industrial and commercial economy and an increasing density of population; the Northwest, now known as the Midwest, a rapidly expanding region of free farmers where slavery had been forever prohibited under the Northwest Ordinance; the Upper South, with a settled plantation system and (in some areas) declining economic fortunes; and the Southwest, a booming frontier-like region with expanding cotton economy. With two fundamentally different labor systems at their base, the economic and social changes across the nation's geographical regions – based on wage labor in the North and on slavery in the South – underlay distinct visions of society that had emerged by the mid-nineteenth century in the North and in the South. Before the Civil War, the United States Constitution provided a basis for peaceful debate over the future of government, and had been able to regulate conflicts of interest and conflicting visions for the new, rapidly expanding nation. For many years, compromises had been made to balance the number of "free states" and "slave states" so that there would be a balance in the Senate. The last slave state admitted was Texas in 1845, with five free states admitted between 1846 and 1859. Kansas's admission as a slave state had recently been blocked, and it was due to enter as a free state instead in 1861. The rise of mass democracy in the industrializing North, the breakdown of the old two-party system, and increasingly virulent and hostile sectional ideologies in the mid-nineteenth century made it highly unlikely, if not impossible, to bring about the gentlemanly compromises of the past (such as the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850) necessary to avoid crisis. Sectional tensions changed in their nature and intensity rapidly during the 1850s. The United States Republican Party (United States) was established in 1854. The new party opposed the expansion of slavery in the Western territories. Although only a small share of Northerners favored measures to abolish slavery in the South, the Republicans were able to mobilize popular support among Northerners and Westerns who did not want to compete against slave labor if the system were expanded beyond the South. The Republicans won the support of many ex-United States Whig Party and Northern ex-Democratic Party (United States) concerned about the South's disproportionate influence in the United States Senate, the James Buchanan, and the Supreme Court of the United States. Meanwhile, the profitability of cotton, or "King Cotton," as it was touted, solidified the South's dependence on the plantation system and its foundation: slave labor. A small class of slave barons, especially cotton planters, dominated the politics and society of the South. [[Image:Lincolnhead.jpg|frame|right|Abraham Lincoln
16th President
(1861-1865)]] Southern secession was triggered by the election of Republican Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln was a moderate in his opposition to slavery. He pledged to do all he could to oppose the expansion of slavery into the territories (thus also preventing the admission of any additional slave states to the Union); but he also said the federal government did not have the power to abolish slavery in the states in which it already existed, and that he would enforce Fugitive Slave Laws. The southern states expected increasing hostility to their "peculiar institution"; not trusting Lincoln, and mindful that many other Republicans were intent on complete abolition of slavery. Lincoln had even encouraged Abolitionism with his 1858 "House divided" speech[http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/house.htm], though that speech was also consistent with an eventual end of slavery achieved gradually and voluntarily with compensation to slave-owners and resettlement of former slaves. In addition to Lincoln's presidential victory, the slave states had lost the balance of power in the Senate and were facing a future as a perpetual minority after decades of nearly continuous control of the presidency and the Congress. Southerners also felt they could no longer prevent protectionism tariffs such as the Morrill Tariff, which generally placed a greater burden upon the South. The Southern justification for a unilateral right to secede cited the doctrine of states' rights, which had been debated before with the 1798 Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, the Hartford Convention during the War of 1812, and the 1832 Nullification Crisis with regard to tariffs. Before Lincoln took office, seven states seceded from the union, establishing a rebel government, the Confederate States of America on February 9, 1861. They took control of federal forts and property within their boundaries, with little resistance from President Buchanan. Ironically, by seceding, the rebel states weakened any claim to the territories that were in dispute, cancelled any obligation for the North to return fugitive slaves, and assured easy passage of many bills and amendments they had long opposed. The Civil War began when Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard opened fire upon Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina on April 12, 1861. There were no casualties in this battle but there would be in the years to come. ==Narrative summary== Lincoln's victory in the U.S. presidential election, 1860 triggered South Carolina's secession from the Union. Lincoln was not even on the ballot in nine states in the South. Leaders in South Carolina had long been waiting for an event that might unite the South against the antislavery forces. Once the election returns were certain, a special South Carolina convention declared "that the Union now subsisting between South Carolina and other states under the name of the 'United States of America' is hereby dissolved." By February 1, 1861, six more Southern states had seceded. On February 7, the seven states adopted a provisional constitution for the Confederate States of America and established their capital at Montgomery, Alabama. The pre-war peace conference of 1861 met at Washington, D.C. The remaining southern states as yet remained in the Union. Several seceding states seized federal forts within their boundaries; President Buchanan made no military response. Less than a month later, on March 4, 1861, Abraham Lincoln was sworn in as President of the United States. In his Inauguration address, he argued that the Constitution was a ''more perfect union'' than the earlier Articles of Confederation, that it was a binding contract, and called the secession "legally void". He stated he had no intent to invade southern states, but would use force to maintain possession of federal property. His speech closed with a plea for restoration of the bonds of union. The South, particularly South Carolina, ignored the plea, and on April 12, the South fired upon the Federal troops stationed at Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina until the troops surrendered. Lincoln called for all of the states in the Union to send troops to recapture the forts and preserve the Union. Most Northerners believed that a quick brutal victory for the Union would crush the nascent rebellion, and so Lincoln only called for volunteers for 90 days. This resulted in four more states voting to secede. Once Virginia seceded, the Confederate capital was moved to Richmond, Virginia. Even though the Southern states had seceded, there was considerable anti-secessionist sentiment within several of the seceding states. Eastern Tennessee, in particular, was a hotbed for pro-Unionism. Winston County, Alabama issued a resolution of secession from the state of Alabama. The ''Red Strings (American politics)'' were a prominent Southern anti-secession group. Winfield Scott created the Anaconda Plan as the Union's main plan of attack during the war. ===Eastern Theater 1861–1863=== As a Confederate force was built up by July 1861 at Manassas, Virginia, a march by Union troops under the command of Maj. Gen. Irvin McDowell on the Confederate forces there was halted in the First Battle of Bull Run, or ''First Manassas'', whereupon they were forced back to Washington, D.C., by Confederate troops under the command of Generals Joseph E. Johnston and P.G.T. Beauregard. It was in this battle that Confederate General Stonewall Jackson received the name of "Stonewall" because he stood like a stone wall against Union troops. Alarmed at the loss, and in an attempt to prevent more slave states from leaving the Union, the Congress of the United States passed the Crittenden-Johnson Resolution on July 25 of that year, which stated that the war was being fought to preserve the Union and not to end slavery. Major General George B. McClellan took command of the Union Army of the Potomac on July 26 (he was briefly general-in-chief of all the Union armies, but was subsequently relieved of that post in favor of Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck), and the war began in earnest in 1862. Upon the strong urging of President Lincoln to begin offensive operations, McClellan invaded Virginia in the spring of 1862 by way of the Virginia Peninsula between the York River (Virginia) and James River (Virginia) , southeast of Richmond. Although McClellan's army reached the gates of Richmond in the Peninsula Campaign, Joseph E. Johnston halted his advance at the Battle of Seven Pines, then Robert E. Lee defeated him in the Seven Days Battles and forced his retreat. McClellan was stripped of many of his troops to reinforce John Pope (military officer)'s Union Army of Virginia. Pope was beaten spectacularly by Lee in the Northern Virginia Campaign and the Second Battle of Bull Run in August. Emboldened by Second Bull Run, the Confederacy made its first invasion of the North, when General Lee led 55,000 men of the Army of Northern Virginia across the Potomac River into Maryland on September 5. Lincoln then restored Pope's troops to McClellan. McClellan and Lee fought at the Battle of Antietam near Sharpsburg, Maryland, on September 17, 1862, the bloodiest single day in American history. Lee's army, checked at last, returned to Virginia before McClellan could destroy it. Antietam is considered a Union victory because it halted Lee's invasion of the North and provided justification for Lincoln to announce his Emancipation Proclamation. When the cautious McClellan failed to follow up on Antietam, he was replaced by Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside. Burnside suffered near-immediate defeat at the Battle of Fredericksburg on December 13, 1862, when over ten thousand Union soldiers were killed or wounded. After the battle, Burnside was replaced by Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker . Hooker, too, proved unable to defeat Lee's army; despite outnumbering the Confederates by more than two to one, he was humiliated in the Battle of Chancellorsville in May 1863. He was replaced by Maj. Gen. George G. Meade during Lee's second invasion of the North, in June. Meade defeated Lee at the Battle of Gettysburg (July 1–July 3, 1863), the largest battle in North American history, which is sometimes considered the war's Turning point of the American Civil War. Lee's army suffered 28,000 casualties (versus Meade's 23,000), again forcing it to retreat to Virginia, never to launch a full-scale invasion of the North again. ===Western Theater 1861–1863=== While the Confederate forces had numerous successes in the Eastern theater, they crucially failed in the West. Confederate forces were driven from Missouri early in the war as result of the Battle of Pea Ridge. Leonidas Polk's invasion of Kentucky enraged the citizens who previously had declared neutrality in the war, turning that state against the Confederacy. Nashville, Tennessee fell to the Union early in 1862. Most of the Mississippi River was opened with the taking of Battle of Island Number Ten and New Madrid, Missouri, and then Memphis, Tennessee. New Orleans, Louisiana, was captured in May, 1862, allowing the Union forces to begin moving up the Mississippi as well. Only the fortress city of Vicksburg, Mississippi prevented unchallenged Union control of the entire river. Braxton Bragg's second Confederate invasion of Kentucky was repulsed at the confused and bloody Battle of Perryville and he was narrowly defeated by William S. Rosecrans at the Battle of Stones River in Tennessee. The one clear Confederate victory in the West was the Battle of Chickamauga in Tennessee, near the Georgia (U.S. state) border, where Bragg, reinforced by the corps of James Longstreet (from Lee's army in the east), defeated Rosecrans despite the heroics of George Henry Thomas and forced him to retreat to Chattanooga, which Bragg then besieged. The Union's key strategist and tactician in the west was Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, who won victories at Battle of Fort Henry, Battle of Fort Donelson, Battle of Shiloh, Battle of Vicksburg, and Chattanooga, Tennessee, driving Confederate forces out of Tennessee. ===Trans-Mississippi Theater 1861–1865=== Though geographically isolated from the battles to the east, a number of military actions took place in the Trans-Mississippi theater, a region encompassing states and territories to the west of the Mississippi River. In 1861 Confederates launched a successful campaign into the territory of present day Arizona and New Mexico. Residents in the southern portions of this territory adopted a secession ordinance of their own and requested that Confederate forces stationed in nearby Texas assist them in removing Union forces still stationed there. The Confederate territory of Arizona was proclaimed by Col. John Baylor after victories at Mesilla, New Mexico, and the capture of several Union forces. Confederate troops were unsuccessful in attempts to press northward in the territory and withdrew from Arizona completely in 1862 as Union reinforcements arrived from California. :''The Battle of Glorieta Pass was a small skirmish in terms of both numbers involved and losses (140 Federal, 190 Confederate). Yet the issues were large, and the battle decisive in resolving them. The Confederates might well have taken Fort Union and Denver had they not been stopped at Glorieta. As one Texan put it, "if it had not been for those devils from Pike's Peak, this country would have been ours.'' :''This small battle smashed any possibilty of the Confederacy taking New Mexico and the far west territories. In April, Union volunteers from California pushed the remaining Confederates out of present-day Arizona at the Battle of Pichaco Peak. In the eastern part of the United States, the fighting dragged on for three more years, but in the Southwest the war was over.'' [http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/twhp/wwwlps/lessons/117glorietaraton/117facts3.htm] The Union mounted several attempts to capture the trans-Mississippi regions of Texas and Louisiana from 1862 until the war's end. With ports to the east under blockade or capture, Texas in particular became a blockade-running haven. Referred to as the "back door" of the Confederacy, Texas and western Louisiana continued to provide cotton crops that were transferred overland to Matamoros, Mexico, and shipped to Europe in exchange for supplies. Determined to close this trade, the Union mounted several invasion attempts of Texas, each of them unsuccessful. Confederate victories at Galveston, Texas, and the Second Battle of Sabine Pass repulsed invasion forces. The Union's disastrous Red River Campaign in western Louisiana, including a defeat at the Battle of Mansfield, effectively ended the Union's final invasion attempt of the region until the final fall of the Confederacy. Isolated from events in the east, the Civil War continued in the Trans-Mississippi theater for several months after Robert E. Lee's surrender. The last battle of the war occurred at Battle of Palmito Ranch in southern Texas—ironically a Confederate victory. ===Fall of the Confederacy 1864–1865=== [[Image:President-Jefferson-Davis.jpg|thumb|left|Jefferson Davis
First and only President of the Confederate States of America]] At the beginning of 1864, Grant was promoted to lieutenant general and given command of all Union armies. He chose to make his headquarters with the Army of the Potomac although Meade remained the actual commander of that army. He left Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman in command of most of the western armies. Grant understood the concept of total war and believed, along with Lincoln and Sherman, that only the utter defeat of Confederate forces and their economic base would bring an end to the war. Therefore, scorched earth tactics would be required in some important theaters. He devised a coordinated strategy that would strike at the heart of Confederacy from multiple directions: Grant, Meade, and Benjamin Franklin Butler (politician) against Lee near Richmond; Franz Sigel in the Shenandoah Valley; Sherman to invade Georgia (U.S. state), defeat Joseph E. Johnston, and capture Atlanta; George Crook and William W. Averell to operate against railroad supply lines in West Virginia; Nathaniel Prentiss Banks to capture Mobile, Alabama. Union forces in the East attempted to maneuver past Lee and fought several battles during that phase of the Eastern campaign, known as Grant's Overland Campaign. An attempt to outflank Lee from the south failed under Butler, who was ''corked'' into the Bermuda Hundred Campaign river bend. Grant was tenacious and, despite astonishing losses (over 66,000 casualties in six weeks), kept pressing the Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. He pinned down the Confederate army in the Siege of Petersburg, where the two armies engaged in trench warfare for over nine months. After two failed attempts (under Sigel and David Hunter) to seize key points in the Shenandoah Valley, Grant finally found a commander, Philip Sheridan, aggressive enough to prevail in the Valley Campaigns of 1864. Sheridan was sent as a result of a raid by the aggressive Jubal Anderson Early, whose corps reached the outer defenses of Washington, alarming the federal government, before withdrawing back to the Valley. Sheridan proved to be more than a match for Early, and defeated him in a series of battles, decisively at Battle of Cedar Creek, and proceeded to destroy the agricultural and industrial base of the Valley, similar to the scorched-earth tactics Sherman would employ in Georgia. Meanwhile, Sherman marched from Chattanooga to Atlanta, Georgia (U.S. state), defeating Generals Joseph E. Johnston and John B. Hood. The fall of Atlanta on September 2, 1864, was a significant factor in re-electing Abraham Lincoln. Leaving Atlanta, and his base of supplies, Sherman's army marched with an unclear destination, laying waste to much of the rest of Georgia in his celebrated ''Sherman's March to the Sea'', reaching the sea at Savannah, Georgia in December, 1864. Burning towns and plantations as they went, Sherman's armies hauled off crops and killed livestock to retaliate and to deny use of these economic assets to the Confederacy, a consequence of Grant's scorched earth doctrine. When Sherman turned north through South Carolina and North Carolina to approach the Virginia lines from the south, it was the end for Lee and his men, and for the Confederacy. Lee attempted to escape from the besieged Petersburg and link up with Johnston in North Carolina, but he was overtaken by Grant. He surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia on April 9, 1865, at Appomattox Court House. Johnston surrendered his troops to Sherman shortly thereafter. The Battle of Palmito Ranch, fought on May 13, 1865, in the far south of Texas, was the last land battle of the war and ended, ironically, with a Confederate victory. All Confederate land forces surrendered by June 1865. Confederate naval units surrendered as late as November 1865, with the last actions being attacks on private New England whaling ships by the CSS Shenandoah in the Bering Strait through June 28, 1865. == Reasons for the Outcome == Why the Union prevailed (or why the Confederacy was defeated) in the Civil War has been a subject of extensive analysis and debate. Advantages widely believed to have contributed to the Union's success include: *The more industrialized economy of the North, which aided in the production of arms and munitions. *Strong compatible railroad links between Union cities, which allowed for the relatively quick movement of troops. (It should be noted, however, that the Confederacy had more railroads per capita than any other country at the time.) *The Union's larger population and greater immigration during the war, allowing for a larger pool of potential conscripts. *The Union's possession of the U.S. merchant marine fleet and naval ships, which led to its successful Union blockade. *The Union's more established government, which may have resulted in less infighting and a more streamlined conduction of the war. *The moral cause assigned to the war by the Emancipation Proclamation, which may have given the Union additional incentive to continue the war effort, and also may have encouraged international support. *The recruitment of African-Americans, including many freed slaves, into the Union Army after the Emancipation Proclamation took effect, thus allowing the Union to tap a population source their enemy ideologically refused to use. In the final weeks of the war, the Confederacy relented and began to allow African-Americans to enlist in the army, but this was only a token effort. *The Confederacy's possible squandering of resources on early audacious conventional offensives and its [http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0HZY/is_1_14/ai_78397581 failure] to fully use its advantages in guerilla warfare against Union communication and transportation infrastructure. *The Confederacy's failure to win military support from any foreign powers, mostly due to the Battle of Antietam, and a well-timed release of the Emancipation Proclamation. == Major land battles == ''Main article: Battles of the American Civil War'' The ten costliest land battles, measured by casualties (killed, wounded, captured, and missing) were: {| border=1 cellpadding=2 ! Battle (State) ! Dates ! Confederate
Commander ! Union Commander ! Conf. Forces ! Union Forces ! Victor ! Casualties |- | Battle of Gettysburg (Pennsylvania) | July 1–July 3, 1863 | Robert E. Lee | George G. Meade | 75,000 | 82,289 | Union | 51,112 (23,049 Union and 28,063 Conf.) |- | Battle of Chickamauga (Georgia (U.S. state)) | September 19–September 20, 1863 | Braxton Bragg | William Rosecrans | 66,326 | 58,222 | Conf. | 34,624 (16,170 Union and 18,454 Conf.) |- | Battle of Chancellorsville (Virginia) | May 1–May 4, 1863 | Robert E. Lee | Joseph Hooker | 60,892 | 133,868 | Conf. | 30,099 (17,278 Union and 12,821 Conf.) |- | Battle of Spotsylvania Court House (Virginia) | May 8–May 19, 1864 | Robert E. Lee | Ulysses S. Grant | 50,000 | 83,000 | Conf. | 27,399 (18,399 Union and 9,000 Conf.) |- | Battle of Antietam (Maryland) | September 17, 1862 | Robert E. Lee | George B. McClellan | 51,844 | 75,316 | Union | 26,134 (12,410 Union and 13,724 Conf.) |- | Battle of the Wilderness (Virginia) | May 5–May 7, 1864 | Robert E. Lee | Ulysses S. Grant | 61,025 | 101,895 | Unknown | 25,416 (17,666 Union and 7,750 Conf.) |- | Second Battle of Manassas (Virginia) | August 29–August 30, 1862 | Robert E. Lee | John Pope (military officer) | 48,527 | 75,696 | Conf. | 25,251 (16,054 Union and 9,197 Conf.) |- | Battle of Stones River (Tennessee) | December 31, 1862 | Braxton Bragg | William S. Rosecrans | 37,739 | 41,400 | Union | 24,645 (12,906 Union and 11,739 Conf.) |- | Battle of Shiloh (Tennessee) | April 6–April 7, 1862 | Albert Sidney Johnston
P.G.T. Beauregard | Ulysses S. Grant | 40,335 | 62,682 | Union | 23,741 (13,047 Union and 10,694 Conf.) |- | Battle of Fort Donelson (Tennessee) | February 13–February 16, 1862 | John B. Floyd
Simon Bolivar Buckner, Sr. | Ulysses S. Grant | 21,000 | 27,000 | Union | 19,455 (2,832 Union and 16,623 Conf.) |} Other major land battles included First Bull Run, The Seven Days, Battle of Perryville, Battle of Fredericksburg, Battle of Vicksburg, Battle of Chattanooga, the Siege of Petersburg, and the battles of Battle of Franklin and Battle of Nashville. There was also Valley Campaign, the Atlanta Campaign, Red River Campaign, Missouri Campaign, Valley Campaigns of 1864, and many coastal and river battles. == Major naval battles == ''Main article: Battles of the American Civil War'' Major naval battles included Battle of Island Number Ten, Battle of Hampton Roads, Battle of Memphis, Battle of Drewry's Bluff, Battle of Fort Hindman, and Battle of Mobile Bay. In addition to this, a Union blockade of Confederate ports throughout the war attempted to deny supplies to the CSA. ==Civil War leaders== One of the reasons that the US Civil War wore on as long as it did and the battles were so fierce was that leaders on both sides had formerly served in the United States armed forces together, many, including Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee, during the Mexican-American War between 1846 and 1848. Most were graduates of the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, where Lee had been commandant for 3 years in the 1850s. Significant Southern leaders included Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, Joseph E. Johnston, Thomas J. Jackson, James Longstreet, P.G.T. Beauregard, John Mosby, Braxton Bragg, John Bell Hood, JEB Stuart, William Mahone, Judah P. Benjamin, Jubal Anderson Early, and Nathan Bedford Forrest. Northern leaders included Abraham Lincoln, William H. Seward, Edwin M. Stanton, Ulysses S. Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman, George H. Thomas, George B. McClellan, Henry W. Halleck, Joseph Hooker, Ambrose Burnside, Irvin McDowell, Philip Sheridan, George Crook, George Armstrong Custer, Kit Carson, John E. Wool, George G. Meade, Winfield Hancock, Elihu Washburne, Abner Read, and Robert Gould Shaw. Five men who served as Union officers eventually became presidents of the United States: Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James Garfield, Benjamin Harrison, and William McKinley. Although not being allowed to fight in the civil war due to the fact that she was a woman, Clara Barton became the leader of the Union of Nurses and was widely known as the "Angel of the Battlefield." She experienced the horror of 16 wars, helping behind the lines to heal the injured soldiers. Clara organized a relief program that helped to better distribute supplies to wounded soldiers of both the North and South. ==Aftermath== As slavery and constitutional questions concerning states' rights were widely viewed as causes for the war, the victorious Union government sought to end slavery and to strip the states of their powers to define citizenship and to deny residents fundamental rights. During the early part of the war, Lincoln, to hold together his war coalition of Republicans and War Democrats, emphasized preservation of the Union as the sole Union objective of the war, but with the Emancipation Proclamation, announced in September 1862 and put into effect four months later, Lincoln adopted the abolition of slavery as a second mission. The Emancipation Proclamation declared all slaves held in territory then under Confederate control to be "then, thenceforth, and forever free." It had little initial effect but served to commit the United States to the goal of ending slavery. The Proclamation would be put into practical effect in Confederate territory captured over the remainder of the war. The border States of Missouri and Maryland moved during the course of the war to end slavery, and in December 1864, the Congress proposed the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution to the United States Constitution, barring slavery throughout the United States; the 13th Amendment was fully ratified by the end of 1865. The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, defining citizenship and giving the Federal government broad power to require the States to provide equal protection of the laws was adopted in 1868. The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution guaranteeing black Americans the right to vote was ratified in 1870. The 14th and 15th Amendments reversed the effects of the Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision of 1857, but the 14th Amendment, in particular, had unanticipated and far-reaching effects. The expansion of fundamental rights under the 14th Amendment's first clause, requiring due process and equal protection for all citizens, was not anticipated by its sponsors. Under this clause the Supreme Court of the United States later recognized such rights as the right to abortion, the right to birth control, the right to medicine, and the right to marriage. According to data from the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, the last surviving Union veteran of the conflict, Albert Woolson, died on August 2, 1956 at the age of 109, and the last Confederate veteran, John Salling, died on March 16, 1958, at the age of 112. However, William Marvel investigated the claims of both for a 1991 piece in the Civil War history magazine ''Blue & Gray''. Using census information, he found that Salling was born in 1858, far too late to have served in the Civil War. In fact, he concluded, "Every one of the last dozen recognized Confederates was bogus." He found Woolson to be the last true veteran of the Civil War on either side; he had served as a drummer boy late in the war. After the war, the Grand Army of the Republic, a fraternal organization open to Union war veterans, was founded in 1866. Confederate veterans formed the United Confederate Veterans in 1889. In 1905, a campaign medal was authorized for all Civil War veterans, known as the Civil War Campaign Medal. Many of the Union military leaders, such as Philip Sheridan, Sherman, and George Armstrong Custer would take the concept of scorched earth and apply it to the Indian Wars on the Great Plains, which resulted in ethnic cleansing and attempted genocide. From the U.S. presidential election, 1876 until the U.S. presidential election, 1964, Georgia (U.S. State), Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas U.S. presidential election maps to the Republican Party (United States), with South Carolina and Louisiana making an exception only once each. Most other states that had seceded voted overwhelmingly against Republican presidential nominees also, with the same trend predominantly applying in state elections too. This phenomenon was known as the Solid South. However, starting with the election of 1964, this trend has almost completely reversed, and most of the Southern states have now become Republican strongholds. A good deal of ill will among the Southern survivors resulted from the consequent shift of political power to the North, the destruction inflicted on the South by the Union armies as the end of the war approached, and the Reconstruction program instituted in the South by the Union after the war's end. Bitterness about the war continued for decades after the war ended. Many southerners still do not accept the outcome, and it entrenched northern antipathy toward the south. Confederate flags and bumper stickers that say "The South shall rise again" are sometimes seen in various parts of the South. Heated political debates still occur over the use of symbols like Confederate Flags and images of Lincoln in public life. When asked, the flag's proponents argue that it does not signify any type of prejudice or racism, but is instead a symbol of the bond the southern states share; others, especially black Americans, disagree. ==Books== ===Histories and biographies=== *Eicher, John H., & Eicher, David J.: ''Civil War High Commands'', Stanford University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8047-3641-3 *Shelby Foote, ''The Civil War, A Narrative'' (3 volumes), Random House, 1974, ISBN 0-394-74913-8 *Douglas S. Freeman, ''R. E. Lee, A Biography'' (4 volumes), Scribners, 1940 *Freeman, Douglas S., ''Lee's Lieutenants: A Study in Command'' (3 volumes), Scribners, 1946, ISBN 0-684-85979-3 *James M. McPherson, ''Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford History of the United States)'', Oxford University Press, 1988, ISBN 0-195-03863-0 *Woodword, C. Vann, Ed., ''Mary Chesnut's Civil War'', Yale University Press, 1981, ISBN 0-300-02979-9 ===Novels about the war=== *Stephen Crane, ''The Red Badge of Courage'' *Margaret Mitchell, ''Gone With the Wind'' *Jeffrey Shaara, ''Gods and Generals'' *Shaara, Jeffrey, ''The Last Full Measure'' *Michael Shaara, ''The Killer Angels'' *Jules Verne, ''North against South'' (''Nord Contre Sud'') *Ishmael Reed, ''Flight to Canada'' ==See also== *List of American Civil War topics *List of people associated with the American Civil War *African Americans in the Civil War *Photography and photographers of the American Civil War *Canada and the American Civil War *Illinois in the Civil War *Rail transport in the American Civil War == External links == *[http://sunsite.utk.edu/civil-war/ The American Civil War Homepage] *[http://www.archives.gov/research_room/research_topics/civil_war/civil_war_photos.html Civil War photos] at the National Archives *[http://sunsite.utk.edu/civil-war/generals.html University of Tennessee: US Civil War Generals] *[http://www.civilwarhome.com Shotgun's Home of the American Civil War] *[http://www.us-civilwar.com American Civil War] *[http://www.pbs.org/civilwar ''The Civil War''], a Public Broadcasting Service documentary by Ken Burns * Individual state's contributions to the Civil War: [http://www.militarymuseum.org/HistoryCW.html California], [http://www.floridamemory.com/OnlineClassroom/FloridaCivilWar/index.cfm Florida], [http://www.illinoiscivilwar.org/ Illinois #1], [http://www.rootsweb.com/~ilcivilw/ Illinois #2], [http://www.ohiocivilwar.com/ Ohio], [http://www.pacivilwar.com/ Pennsylvania] * Alexander Hamilton Stephens' Cornerstone Speech[http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?documentprint=76] American Civil War Civil wars Rebellions in the United States bs:Američki građanski rat nds:Amerikaansche Börgerorlog
''Part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Wars'' ---- ==Introduction== This section is weak. ==Naming Conventions== The introduction as it was (before 2005-5-5), had almost as many inaccuracies as facts, and bore too much anti-South hatred. I am not from the South, but there is simply no reason for such hatred and distortion of historical reality. What is needed is something neutral and intelligent. As it stands now, the section reads like a comic book or a badly written 140-year-old political tract. It was so badly organized and so poorly written, that is was largely unreadable. The current section (2005-5-5) is greatly expanded, very thorough, very fair, and can eventually be integrated (he he) with a stronger Introduction. * And now its a polemic against Lincoln --User:JimWae 06:34, 2005 Feb 5 (UTC) :No. It states exactly what Lincoln indeed said -- without comment. **2 things ** the name of the war in part depends on outcome. :That is your very unique POV. :The War was between the states, which is why that is the favored term among real historians -- not among amateurs. :As clearly explained, Civil War is the preferred term, because that it the term most often used. But it is an inaccurate term. :On the other hand, "English Civil War" is indeed an accurate term, because the factions were distributed throughout the kingdom. Society was in disarray, and factions were fighting over control of the government. :Similarly, when England fought Scotland -- even when they were governed by the same monarch -- it is never described as a Civil War. Scotland and England are too separate territories. :To call it a war of independence, when they lost is just confusing & an obvious POV :You didn't read the correction. It clearly states that Southern Heritage groups prefer that term, and why they say they do. :This is a simple fact. It says nowhere that we should start calling the war by what the Southrern Heritage groups call it. *that makes no attempt to cope with the results. The result was 1 nation, so it makes sense to view it as a contest within 1 nation :You are confusing results with description. You are proposing a new term for the war: "The War that Created One Nation." *you have added your personal POV instead. :No. You are proposing a novel interpretation based on your own POV which you are just now inventing. The war was not named on results. Nobody has ever said that before you. That is your own POV. :The war is named based on what occurred. It is past tense because it was a historical event. Lincoln wished to interpret that one way: Thus the terms "Rebellion," "Insurrection," "Civil War." That, too, is POV. We conventionally use "Civil War" because that has the most mileage behind it, and because it is shorter. "Civil War" is by no means neutral. It is just the term most non-historians are used to. :It is universally acknowledge by both parties in the war that "War Between the States" is an acceptable compromise -- and it is this term which had official sanction. * -To call it a war of independence, when they lost is just confusing That makes no sense. You are aggressively insisting on your own POV, and expecting people to understand you. Southerners said they were fighting to maintain the independence they won at secession. This is clearly explained in the emendation to the section. **& an obvious POV You are insisting that anything that is not your POV is POV. Thus, when you read anything neutral, you see only POV. **that makes no attempt to cope with the results. This is irrelevant. Once again, this is your novel argument that wars are named for results. It is POV. :By your thinking, The Mexican-American War should be "Manifest Destiny War" or the "War to Create the American Southwest." World War II would become the "War to Destroy Nazis and ts," or the "War that Resulted in the Cold War." :Come on already. ***The result was 1 nation, so it makes sense to view it as a contest within 1 nation - you have added your personal POV instead - ***do you deny the USA is 1 nation? :Irrelevant. See above. *the name of the war should also be descriptive from the viewpoint of other nations. From their viewpoint, "civil war" makes complete sense From the viewpoint of other nations, it was a war that would decide whether the South would be independent or be part of the Union. Read Lord Acton. :It was a war between American States -- even if these states became subdivisions of the Union thereafter. :However, most are familiar with the very inaccurate "Civil War," which is also shorter and easier to say. Thus the convention. :What this article needed was an intelligent definition of civil war at the top, which is indeed provided in the emendation. :Please read it all next time, before you wipe out the entire section again.--User:Wighson 03:25, 2005 Feb 6 (UTC) In the greater context that this article is about a War, it seems out of balance that so much attention is given to the names of the conflict. Maybe a separate article would be appropriate for all this detail about naming convenions. User:Vaoverland 08:33, Feb 6, 2005 (UTC) *'''War of Southern Independence'' is INTRODUCED at least 3 times in Introduction - whole section needs to be made more concise --User:JimWae 19:23, 2005 Feb 7 (UTC) The term "southern partisans" is used in a very redundant manner in the naming section. It's in there about half a dozen times in a row, beginning several successive sentences. This sounds choppy and poorly written. Somebody should clean it upUser:Rangerdude 04:53, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC) ==Map== The map is inaccurate, and needs to be replaced. It is anachronistic: it shows states which did not exist 1861-1865. It does not show the Confederate Territory of Arizona which had seceded from the larger Territory of New Mexico. It also shows West Virginia as if separate from the beginning, when in fact it was part of Virginia and the Confederacy until Lincoln declared it had seceded from Virginia in 1863. ---s'not much, the map is still anachronistic, but its color scheme is more appropriate.(blue and gray, instead of red and blue) not good for an encyclopedia to take sides on an ongoing culture war... : Not to mention Alaska and Hawaii, which were not even U.S. ''territories'' at the time. User:Mateo SA | User talk:Mateo SA 15:10, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC) ==Are the North & the South at Peace now?== From the article: :A great deal of ill-will among the Southern survivors resulted from the total warfare practiced during the war by the Union armies and the "reconstruction" program forced on the former Confederacy by the Union victors. I think this is misleading on several counts: * I don't think the Union used "total warfare", at least not the definition used in Wikipedia and elsewhere. Sherman's March to the Sea is probably the closest to being total warfare and was intended to destroy the morale of the entire south, but they did not specifically target civilians, rather any property that could aid the south. * Does "reconstruction" really need to be in quotes? It should be an article link if anything. * I think it's misleading to explain ill-will as resulting purely from Union misdeeds. I mean, the south lost a major war, slavery, and saw their political power wane (prior to the civil war, the two major power blocks of states where slaves states and non-slave states and even without the direct after effects of the war, the south lost a lot of power). I don't think ill-will needs to be explained to this extent as being the result of northern misdeeds. User:Daniel Quinlan 00:50, Aug 14, 2003 (UTC) ** I don't think that one should attempt to put a generic label on the type of warfare practiced by one side or the other. The fact is that the type of warfare conducted varied by geographic location, by commander, and by how far along into the war it was. You can't just simplistically say that one side fought this way and the other fought another way. Didn't work like that. ** As far as reconstruction is concerned you have different types of reconstruction. You have Lincoln's conciliatory policy that led to results like Isaac Murphy and you have the radical reconstruction that entailed dividing the South up into military districts. Reconstruction led to a variety of things, it led to land-grant universities which was good, it led to penetration of railroads into the South which was good, etc. but it also led to terrible graft and corruption. You are better off just stating a variety of facts and not trying to boil down "reconstruction" as all "good" or all "bad".User:Ark30inf 01:03, 14 Aug 2003 (UTC) I don't see any point in trying to discuss the various aspects of Reconstruction here, it should just be mentioned and have its own article. User:RickK 02:01, 14 Aug 2003 (UTC) : Check the article. There already was one, so I made according changes (plus fixing the issues as I saw them). User:Daniel Quinlan 02:19, Aug 14, 2003 (UTC) ::I think the article is better after the change and thats what matters. All of the Civil War stuff appears to need work in the long run though.User:Ark30inf 02:29, 14 Aug 2003 (UTC) :::The fact that I think its better is not all that matters, the fact that it is better is all that matters. Thought I would clear that up.User:Ark30inf 02:30, 14 Aug 2003 (UTC) ==Name of the War== Why on earth was this moved from its correct name? User:Tannin :: I did not move it, but I certainly agree with it. ''Civil War'' is the proper name we have (somewhat egotistically) given to this conflict. We added ''American'' to that proper name to differentiate it from generic civil war elsewhere on the globe. Given that, all of it should be capitalized. By changing it to not be capitalized you are referring to ANY American civil war and not the specific one whose proper name is ''Civil War''. We shouldn't make ''World War Two'' into ''World war two'' and likewise shouldn't make ''American Civil War'' into ''American civil war''. IMO. User:Ark30inf 13:24, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC) ------- Just so, Ark30inf. Its name (rightly or wrongly) is American Civil War, and proper names are always capitalised. We might as well write ''George w. bush''. I was going to wait to see if CGS had a reason for the move, but on reflection, I don't see how there could be one, so I moved it back. (Sorry CGS.) User:Tannin 13:33, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC) I don't see it as a proper noun. It was the civil war of the Americans, how is it a proper noun? Naming_conventions#Lowercase_second_and_subsequent_words. BTW, I was I who moved it. User:Cgs 14:27, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC). :''War of the Roses'' is a proper name and is capitalized. ''American Civil War'' is also a proper name even though there could be an article called ''American civil'' which would deal with the generic concept of any non-specific civil war in America. But this is a specific civil war called American Civil WarUser:Ark30inf 15:28, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC) Think of it this way: all wars have a name (which is, of course, a proper noun). Some wars have two or three names: e.g., World War II, Second World War, Great Patriotic War - all three are names for the same war. Similarly, the First World War, World War 1 and the Great War. I could call WW2 the ''war against Hitler and Tojo'' if I wanted to, but note that this is ''not'' capitalised, as it's not the actual name of the war, just a term I made up. So, if I were to call the American Civil War (which is its internationally accepted proper name) ... er ... ''the US slavery war'', that's fine too - but note that it is not capitalised because it's not the war's name. Same rule as for people. I write ''George W Bush'' with capitals (because that is his name) but ''the guy in the top job'' in lower case because, although it's the same person I'm talking about, I'm not using his actual name. Make sense? User:Tannin ---- ==Causes of the Civil War== I'm amazed by some people's ignorance in here. The Civil War was NOT STARTED because of slavery. Slavery was NOT the core issue. If you really want to know why, yes, it was states rights. It was primarily the TARIFFS that prompted South Carolinas succession. (hence their naming a tariff "Tariff of Abominations" The Confederacy did NOT secede because of slavery, they seceded because they believed the Federal Government was oppressing them on the counts of Tariffs and votes. Please, for the love of history, make sure your facts are right. User:Agiamba Recent changes were made to boil down the wars causes to, of course, the slavery issue. The changes diminished the role of States Rights as a concept that stood on its own and instead indicated that it was merely a reflection of the slavery issue. I am not opposed to indicating the role of slavery, which was critical, but I am opposed to dismissing other causes. I'm not in favor of "boiling down" as opposed to providing more information in this case. The Civil War was the most complex political eruption in US history. It is impossible to distill such a complex event down to the sentence "slavery war", at least w/o choosing the point of view that that the rest of the issues are not real, a point of view that is disputed. : No, recent changes were made that implied slavery was not the core issue when it was. It certainly was not the only cause, but it was the core issue, and I restored that to the article. I did not "boil down" anything. Compare the current text (after my edit) to the text of several days ago. User:Daniel Quinlan 01:33, Oct 24, 2003 (UTC) One cannot rationally deny the role of slavery in the conflict (though many do). But you can't rationally ignore the complexities either. For example, the people of my home State elected a generally pro-Union secession convention, the major State newspaper was pro-Union. That convention voted NOT to secede and dismissed. It only reconvened, and the newspaper only altered its position, after Lincoln's call for troops. The convention, and the newspaper, stated that the primary trigger for the change was the call to supress the seceded States. If you were to say that the Southern States seceded over the slavery you would be correct for Deep South states, but not as correct for the States of the Upper South which were responding to the administration's actions. Arkansas', though very involved with the slavery issue, specifically seceded in response to "coercion", definitely a States Rights issue. Was it inclined towards its fellow Southern states due to the slavery issue? Yes, but it had declined to secede until the call for troops. Also there is the matter of changing motives of the South. If you asked why Alabama went to war in 1861 the slavery motive would be high as stated in their secession resolution. But if you ask why Alabama was fighting in 1864 then independence would have been high. : Why did States Rights become an issue? It wasn't due to slavery? User:Daniel Quinlan 01:33, Oct 24, 2003 (UTC) Similarly, the United States did not enter the war to end slavery. A few abolitionists certainly did, but not the United States as a matter of policy. Lincoln definitely stated that he would not interfere with slavery if that would keep the Union together. The primary immediate cause of the war in the north was the firing on the flag at Fort Sumter which, due to patriotism and pride, demanded a response. If you say that the war in 1861 was fought by the north over slavery you would be closer to wrong. But if you said that in 1864 the north was fighting to end slavery then you would be closer to right because Lincoln made it so and changed the northern reason for war with the Emancipation Proclamation. : No, it didn't enter purely for that reason, but the states seceded to preserve slavery. User:Daniel Quinlan 01:33, Oct 24, 2003 (UTC) Oddly enough, as the war became more slavery related for the Union, it became less slavery related for the South. As I said, complex event. : The sequence of events was complicated and individual rationalization perhaps too, but the core issue was still slavery. User:Daniel Quinlan 01:33, Oct 24, 2003 (UTC) I'm mentioning this here because I think that recent edits dismiss much of the complexity in an effort to boil down the war to the lowest common denominator. I think that does the reader a disservice and plays into the stereotypical view of the war. So I wanted to give fair warning. When I get a chance soon I will attempt to put some of this complexity into the article in a fair and neutral way.User:Ark30inf 23:40, 23 Oct 2003 (UTC) : You're taking a very simplistic view of the complexity of the slavery issue and the numerous problems it caused. If you look at the history of the Civil War, the numerous compromises (all related to slavery that were necessary to keep the South in the Union), and the precipitating events, all relate back to slavery. Yes, southerners can rationalize all they want about states' rights and northern aggression, but what issue would there have been without the south holding slaves? : I think it's a bit deceptive to claim that I somehow "dumbed down" the article, that the article is now falling in line with the stereotypical view, or that adding "complexity" will improve the article. Do you really think the Civil War would have happened without slavery as an issue dividing the north and the south? Have you fallen prey to the revisionist history that it wasn't ultimately about slavery at all? : Perhaps I should just let the text changes speak for me:
''Tip:'' Some people find it helpful if these suggestions are shown on this talk page, rather than on another page. To do this, just addUser_talk:Brian0918 ">User:Brian0918|User:Brian0918 User_talk:Brian0918 17:19, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
*Nevermind. I found this very informative [http://www2.cr.nps.gov/abpp/battles/bycampgn.htm link] which lists all of the battles by their campaigns. --User:Brian0918_User_talk:Brian0918 ">User:Brian0918|User:Brian0918 User_talk:Brian0918 17:32, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
==Origins of the conflict: version B==
Spot the syntax errors, factual errors, half-truths, & empty words in the latest version:
:''The American Civil War originated in a constitutional crisis, precipitated when several southern States "seceded" from the United States, and formed their own federal republic, the Confederate States of America. The Southern belief that they had a right, unilaterally, to secede, can be attributed to the doctrine of State Sovereignty or States Rights.''
:''Many contributing causes include sectional rivalry, the moral campaign of Abolitionists against slavery and its expansion, and especially trend of growing federalism which was gradually shifting the balance of power in the United States from the states themselves and into the hands of a strong, centralized federal government. Southerners also believed that the Morrill Tariff, which was passed on the eve of the war, unduly burdened them with the bulk of the federal taxes. When compromises to these conflicts (most notably the Corwin Amendment) failed, which had been debated as early as 1820 with regard to tariffs, conflict loomed.''
:''Conflict was precipitated by election of the Republican candidate for President in 1860, Abraham Lincoln, a moderately antislavery politician pledged to oppose "slavery expansion" -- that is, the admission of additional slave states to the Union, though this had little to do with his prosecution of the war. And the secession of first South Carolina then other southern states followed by the shelling of Fort Sumter.''
--User:JimWae 06:19, 2005 Jan 8 (UTC)
----
*as for sytax, thats for the copyedit, as for the rest, i see no problems --User:Boothy443 06:22, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)
*You want to give as a CAUSE to secede that abolitionists conducted a moral campaign against slavery?--User:JimWae 06:48, 2005 Jan 8 (UTC)
** Your Corwin Amendment sentence has at least 4 factual errors
** Your last "sentence" isn't.
** If you cannot copyedit, why do you bother us to read it?
** Secede over Morrill tariff? which was passed AFTER SC seceded?
** how does one distinguish
**:''"especially trend of growing federalism which was gradually shifting the balance of power in the United States from the states themselves and into the hands of a strong, centralized federal government"
*: from just being a minority? - especially when the federal gov't had, for the most part, been controlled by the South previously?
----
::proof? also if that was the case, why leave the union, if you have the power when not pull the laws in your favor--User:Boothy443 07:29, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)
----
:* read what I said again. Note the word "previously". Also note, there's still no difference between a claim of a (future) "trend toward strong, centralized federal gov't" and "being a minority" - it's not necessarily about feds removing states rights, it can be viewed simply as being outvoted by the other states.
:* I can work the Morill tariff into my version quite easily, though
:*: ''Being in a permanent minority position, the southern states could not prevent large tariffs being imposed on imports of goods that competed with Northern manufacturing.''
::--User:JimWae 07:49, 2005 Jan 8 (UTC)
==Origins of the conflict: version J ==
Admittedly longer, but could add more on tariffs perhaps. Shall we vote on which version to work with? --User:JimWae 06:42, 2005 Jan 8 (UTC)
:''The American Civil War originated in a constitutional crisis, precipitated when several southern States "seceded" from the United States, and formed their own federal republic, the Confederate States of America. The Southern justification for a unilateral right to secede cited the doctrine of State Sovereignty or States' rights, which had been debated before with the 1798 Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, the Hartford Convention during the War of 1812, and the 1832 Nullification Crisis with regard to tariffs.
:''For many years, compromises had been made to balance the number of free states and slave states so that there would be a balance in the Senate. The last slave state admitted was Texas in 1845, with five free states admitted since then. Kansas's admission as a slave state had recently been blocked, and it was due to enter as a free state instead in 1861. The South seemed to have permanently lost the balance of power in the Senate and the House of Representatives had long been controlled by free states. The slave states were facing a future as a perpetual minority after decades of nearly continuous control of the presidency and the Congress.
:''The immediate trigger for war was the election of the Republican candidate for President in 1860, Abraham Lincoln, a moderate antislavery politician pledged to do all he could to oppose "slavery expansion" – that is, the admission of additional slave states to the Union from the territories – but who also said he did not believe the federal government had the power to abolish slavery in the states in which it already existed.
:''The slave states expected increasing hostility to their "peculiar institution". They mistrusted Lincoln when he said he had no intention of abolishing slavery in existing states, and also were mindful that many other Republicans were intent on complete abolition of slavery. Lincoln even encouraged abolitionists with his "House divided" speech, though Lincoln likely saw the eventual end of slavery coming about gradually by compensating slave-owners and resettling the former slaves.
:''Before Lincoln took office, seven states seceded & took control of federal forts and property within their boundaries, with little resistance from President Buchanan. Ironically, by seceding, the rebel states weakened any claim to the territories that were in dispute.'''
== NPS version ==
For more than 30 years arguments between the North and South had been growing. One of these quarrels was about taxes paid on goods brought into this country from foreign countries. This kind of tax is called a tariff. In 1828 Northern businessmen helped get the "Tariff Act" passed. It raised the prices of manufactured products from Europe which were sold mainly in the South. The purpose of the law was to encourage the South to buy the North's products. It angered the Southern people to have to pay more for the goods they wanted from Europe or pay more to get goods from the North. Either way the Southern people were forced to pay more because of the efforts of Northern businessmen. Though most of tariff laws had been changed by the time of the Civil War, the Southern people still remembered how they were treated by the Northern people.
In the years before the Civil War the political power in the Federal Government, centered in Washington D.C., was changing. The Northern and Mid-Western States were becoming more and more powerful as the populations increased. The Southern States were losing political power. Just as the original thirteen colonies fought for their independence almost 100 years earlier, the Southern States felt a growing need for freedom from the central Federal authority in Washington D.C. They felt that each State should make its own laws. This issue was called "State's Rights". Some Southern States wanted to secede, or break away from the United States of America and govern themselves.
Another quarrel between the North and South, and perhaps the most emotional one, was over the issue of slavery. Farming was the South's main industry and cotton was the primary farm product. Not having the use of machines, it took a great amount of human labor to pick cotton. A large number of slaves were used in the South to provide the labor. Many slaves were also used to provide labor for the various household chores that needed to be done. Many Northerners thought that owning slaves was wrong, for any reason. Some of those Northerners loudly disagreed with the South's laws and beliefs concerning slavery. Yet slavery had been a part of the Southern way of life for well over 200 years. The Constitution of the United States guaranteed the right to own property and protected against seizure of property. A slave was property. The people of the Southern States did not like the Northern people telling them that owning
Courtesy of U.S. Department of Interior, National Park Service
:First Paragraph/tariff acts - effects on economy
:Second/ population movement causes power shift and need for less federal government control
:Third/ slavery
So their are more then just slavery issues. States right (also know as federal control), and economic issues as well, which need to be noted.--User:Boothy443 08:29, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)
----
*Please see new version which happens to already cover all this - except "States rights" is not an issue, it is a justification. They did not want to secede because they thought they had a right to secede, they seceded because they felt by staying they were not getting their way about something.--User:JimWae 09:40, 2005 Jan 8 (UTC)
----
*Yeah, it's not looking to bad. As for the whole sttes rights thing, let me explain my point on it. The way i look at the States rights issue it's the idea that they secede because they thought they had a right to secede, it is more along the they seceded because they felt by staying they were not getting their way about something. Fundamentally the slavery issue was a state rights issue, as said northern support was growing in congress, so the was a good chance that a law or amendment could be passed that would make slavery basically illegal, even the Corwin Amendment which could not be passes would have kept slavery legal, so their was a significant bias in government going against slavery. But I think the perfect example is Kansas-Nebraska Act, which was supposed to allow the states self determination of their slavery status, But even though Kansas sent a pro-slavery constitution to Congress, which was voted down, the result being that Kansas had to send anti-slavery constitution to congress for their admission. This being that the state cannot determine it’s own rights as it sees fit by its citizens, but that the federal government can overrule the state. I think a perfect quote for this is form Senator James Hammond of South Carolina and his famous "King Cotton" . “Suppose we were to discharge you; suppose we were to take our business out of your hands; -- we should consign you to anarchy and poverty. You complain of the rule of the South; that has been another cause that has preserved you. We have kept the Government conservative to the great purposes of the Constitution. We have placed it, and kept it, upon the Constitution; and that has been the cause of your peace and prosperity. The Senator from New York says that that is about to be at an end; that you intend to take the Government from us; that it will pass from our hands into yours.” I hope this makes some sense and clarifies my point a pit on the states rights. --User:Boothy443 11:19, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)
----
*For what it's worth, this NPS version is hopelessly problematic in its oversimplification. I wonder who wrote it, when they wrote it, and for what purposes. I rather suspect that this passage does not represent the considered views of most park service historians or advisors. The problems: First, not all Southerners opposed tariffs. Indeed, Henry Clay, (a Southerner) and most of the Southern Whigs, especially in the hemp, rice, and sugar-producing states, strongly favored tariffs. The last tariff bill passed before secession (the Tariff of 1857) received bipartisan support from both Northerners and Southerners (see the relevant tariff votes in the ''Congressional Globe'' for this). Second, if one reads the various secession documents, debates, governor's speeches, commissioner's letters, etc., it becomes clear that it was the exercise of state rights by ''Northern'' states, in the form of state personal liberty laws impeding the enforcement of the ''federal'' fugitive slave law, that angered state political leaders in the South the most. Indeed, Southern political leaders were demanding stricter enforcement of federal laws and federal guarantees for slavery, not a reduction of federal power. Note, too, that this concern over Northern state resistance to federal authority was one of the most common complaints voiced by leaders in states such as N.C., Arkansas, Kentucky, etc., that ostensibly seceded over the "coercion" of Lincoln's troop call. This also explains why these same Southerners so strongly supported the Dred Scott decision, which effectively nationalized protections for slaveholder's property claims, and why they were so insistent on federal guarantees for the rights of slave property in the territories ("the Federal Territorial Slave Code") that they walked out of the Democratic Party convention of 1860 in Charleston, splitting that party into two factions. Finally, there is an incorrect, if unspoken, presumption throughout the passage that slaves were not Southerners, and that no other Southerners opposed these positions. Such a claim is especially inappropriate when discussing states such as South Carolina and Mississippi where half or more of the population was enslaved, and completely overlooks Southerners such as Cassius Clay, John Crittenden and Winfield Scott who opposed the secessionist program or fought for the North. Any revision of the main article should reflect these events and policy positions, and should not consider this particular NPS excerpt authoritative. User:Tlbenson 06:54, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)
:Tlbenson - you're oversimplifying the tariff issue and making some mistaken assumptions. True, not all southerners opposed tariffs. But the fact is that most of them did as evidenced by the votes on every major tariff bill. Henry Clay and the southern whigs were a minority position and were shrinking rapidly by the time the civil war broke out. Second, the Tariff of 1857 received southern support because it was a tax cut - the expected position of tariff opponents. The northerners who backed it were in the northwest mostly, and they did so by cutting a deal with the south on some other issues. That changed in 1860 when the northwest cut a deal with the northeastern industrialists and backed the Morrill Tariff
== Industrial Revolution ==
:''It was the first war fought after the Industrial Revolution which tapped an entire economy of an emerging first world power. It was also the first war between two industrialized opponents.''
Is this the whole truth? Britain fought in the Crimean War ( 1854 to 1856), it was the world power and it was further into the Industrial Revolution (by almost any measure (eg see Isambard Kingdom Brunel)) in 1854 than the Northern States were in 1861. It did not tap its entire economy because it did not need to, But neiter did the Northern States. I thought that one of the reasons that the South lost was because it was not industrialized to any significatnt degree. User:Philip Baird Shearer 21:56, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)
::You are correct, that is one of the reasons why we lost the Civil War. We had an agricultural economy that depended heavily upon cotton, rice, indigo, and peanuts. There weren't nearly as many factories down here, or as many rail roads for that matter. The free population was considerably smaller as well. Too small to support the level of industry found up north.User:*Kat* 13:39, Jan 19, 2005 (UTC)
::* out of curiosity, I notice you used "we" to identify yourself with the South. Is that common amongst Southerners or is there another reason for it?--User:JimWae 22:23, 2005 Mar 3 (UTC)
:::Yes, it's pretty common for Southerners to do that, even if they don't identify with the Confederate cause. A substantial percentage of Southerners have ancestors who fought in the war, so it makes some sense. User:Funnyhat 00:29, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Leaving aside the South, which clearly wasn't an industrial powerhouse, the *North* wasn't especially industrialised either. You can see this by checking e.g. Kennedy's Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. The US as a whole was about equal to Russia in 1860. If that qualifies as "industrialized" then the Crimean War must be the first war between industrialized opponents. User:angusmclellan
==Bickering over the causes of the war==
Why isn't all the bickering over the causes of the war under
Origins of the American Civil War? In fairness, all of slavery, tariffs,
sectional differences, states' rights, blah, blah, blah, all had a role. Isn't American Civil War about the war, not its causes? Shouldn't the curious be directed elsewhere to argue the causes? Perhaps a simple statement,
''"The causes of the war are complex, including all slavery, tariffs, sectional differences, and states' rights, and are discussed more fully under Origins of the American Civil War"''.
Just my $0.02.
User:Dino 21:21, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)
:I concur with your sentiments. A simple statement plus a link would be b
American Civil War
{| border="1" width="300" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" align="right" style="margin-left:1em;margin-bottom:1em" |colspan="2"| |- !colspan="2" bgcolor="#ffcccc"| Military history of the United States
Military history of the Confederate States |- |Conflict||American Civil War |- |Date||1861–1865 |- |Place||Principally in the southern United States; also in eastern, central and southwestern regions |- |Result||Defeat of seceding CSA |- !colspan="2"|Battles of the American Civil War |- |colspan="2"| {| border="1" width="300" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" !colspan="2" bgcolor="#ffcccc"|Combatants |- | width="50%" valign="top"|United States
''Flag of the United States 1861–1863. 34 stars, after the admission of Kansas to the Union''
''1863–1864. 35 stars, after the admission of West Virginia).''
''1864–1865. 36 stars, after the admission of Nevada.''
| width="50%" valign="top"|Confederate States of America
''flags of the Confederate States of America to May 1863''
''May 1863
''
''Briefly from March 1865'' |- !colspan="2" |Leaders |- |Abraham Lincoln |Jefferson Davis |- !colspan="2" |Strength |- |2,803,300 |1,064,200 |- !colspan="2" |Casualties |- |KIA: 110,070
Total dead: 359,528
Wounded: 275,175 |KIA: 74,524
Total dead: 198,524
Wounded: 137,000+ |} |} The American Civil War was fought in the United States from 1861 until 1865 between the United States – forces coming mostly from the 23 Northern United States of the United States – and the newly-formed Confederate States of America, which consisted of 11 Southern United States that had declared their secession. There were various names used to describe the war itself, its combatants, armies, and battles (see the article Naming the American Civil War). ==The division of the country== Seven states seceded shortly after U.S. presidential election, 1860 – even before he was inaugurated. They were South Carolina (December 20, 1860), Mississippi (January 9, 1861), Florida (January 10, 1861), Alabama (January 11, 1861), Georgia (U.S. state) (January 19, 1861), Louisiana (January 26, 1861), and Texas (February 1, 1861). These Deep South States, where slavery and Plantation agriculture were most dominant, formed the Confederate States of America (February 4, 1861), with Jefferson Davis as President, and with a Constitution closely modeled on the U.S. Constitution (see also Confederate States Constitution). After the Battle of Fort Sumter, South Carolina, Lincoln called for troops from all remaining states to recover the forts, resulting in the secession of four more states: Virginia (April 17, 1861), Arkansas (May 6, 1861), North Carolina (May 20, 1861), and Tennessee (June 8, 1861). Four "slave states" did not secede, and one seceding state split; these five are known as the Border States (Civil War). Delaware, which had voted for John C. Breckinridge, had few slaves and never considered secession. Maryland also voted for Breckinridge; its legislature rejected secession (April 27, 1861), but only after the Baltimore riot of 1861 and other events had prompted a federal declaration of martial law. Missouri and Kentucky remained in the Union, but in both, factions organized "secessions", which were recognized by the Confederate States of America. In Missouri, the State government under Governor Claiborne F. Jackson, a southern sympathizer, evacuated the state capital of Jefferson City when it was attacked by northern Gen. Nathaniel Lyon on June 14, 1861. The elected Missouri government, under Jackson, met Government in exile at the town of Neosho, Missouri and adopted a secession ordinance that was recognized by the Confederacy on October 30, 1861 (see the Missouri secession controversy). Meanwhile the Union organized a competing government of the state by calling a constitutional convention (political meeting), originally convened to vote on secession. Although Kentucky did not secede, for a time, it declared itself neutral in the conflict, and southern sympathizers organized a secession convention, and swore in a Confederate Governor, during a brief sojourn by the Confederate Army. Residents of the northwestern counties of Virginia organized a secession from Virginia and entered the Union (with a plan for gradual emancipation) in 1863 as West Virginia. The southern half of the federal territory of New Mexico voted to secede, and was accepted into the Confederacy as the Territory of Arizona (not shown on the map), with its capital in Mesilla (now New Mexico). History_of_California#California_and_the_Civil_War was a free state and a part of the Union. Lincoln had won a plurality there, but there was a number of Southern Sympathizers. 28% of its votes went to the Southern Democrat candidate, John C. Breckinridge. California was asked to keep its soldiers under state control and were used to keep the land routes between the Mississippi and the state open. California gold helped finance the Union war effort.[http://www.militarymuseum.org/HistoryCW.html] ==Origins of the conflict== ''For details see the main article Origins of the American Civil War. See also the Timeline of events leading to the American Civil War.'' [[Image:Slavepatrols.jpg|275px|thumb|Slave "patrollers," mostly poor whites, were given the authority to stop, search, whip, maim, and even kill any slave who violated the slave codes. In their agitation against the South, abolitionists cited the slave codes as example of the barbarism of Southern society. Above a woodcut from the abolitionist ''Anti-Slavery Almanac'' (1839) depicts the capture of a fugitive slave by a slave patrol.]] On the eve of the Civil War, the United States was a nation divided into four quite distinct regions: the Northeast, with a growing industrial and commercial economy and an increasing density of population; the Northwest, now known as the Midwest, a rapidly expanding region of free farmers where slavery had been forever prohibited under the Northwest Ordinance; the Upper South, with a settled plantation system and (in some areas) declining economic fortunes; and the Southwest, a booming frontier-like region with expanding cotton economy. With two fundamentally different labor systems at their base, the economic and social changes across the nation's geographical regions – based on wage labor in the North and on slavery in the South – underlay distinct visions of society that had emerged by the mid-nineteenth century in the North and in the South. Before the Civil War, the United States Constitution provided a basis for peaceful debate over the future of government, and had been able to regulate conflicts of interest and conflicting visions for the new, rapidly expanding nation. For many years, compromises had been made to balance the number of "free states" and "slave states" so that there would be a balance in the Senate. The last slave state admitted was Texas in 1845, with five free states admitted between 1846 and 1859. Kansas's admission as a slave state had recently been blocked, and it was due to enter as a free state instead in 1861. The rise of mass democracy in the industrializing North, the breakdown of the old two-party system, and increasingly virulent and hostile sectional ideologies in the mid-nineteenth century made it highly unlikely, if not impossible, to bring about the gentlemanly compromises of the past (such as the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850) necessary to avoid crisis. Sectional tensions changed in their nature and intensity rapidly during the 1850s. The United States Republican Party (United States) was established in 1854. The new party opposed the expansion of slavery in the Western territories. Although only a small share of Northerners favored measures to abolish slavery in the South, the Republicans were able to mobilize popular support among Northerners and Westerns who did not want to compete against slave labor if the system were expanded beyond the South. The Republicans won the support of many ex-United States Whig Party and Northern ex-Democratic Party (United States) concerned about the South's disproportionate influence in the United States Senate, the James Buchanan, and the Supreme Court of the United States. Meanwhile, the profitability of cotton, or "King Cotton," as it was touted, solidified the South's dependence on the plantation system and its foundation: slave labor. A small class of slave barons, especially cotton planters, dominated the politics and society of the South. [[Image:Lincolnhead.jpg|frame|right|Abraham Lincoln
16th President
(1861-1865)]] Southern secession was triggered by the election of Republican Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln was a moderate in his opposition to slavery. He pledged to do all he could to oppose the expansion of slavery into the territories (thus also preventing the admission of any additional slave states to the Union); but he also said the federal government did not have the power to abolish slavery in the states in which it already existed, and that he would enforce Fugitive Slave Laws. The southern states expected increasing hostility to their "peculiar institution"; not trusting Lincoln, and mindful that many other Republicans were intent on complete abolition of slavery. Lincoln had even encouraged Abolitionism with his 1858 "House divided" speech[http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/house.htm], though that speech was also consistent with an eventual end of slavery achieved gradually and voluntarily with compensation to slave-owners and resettlement of former slaves. In addition to Lincoln's presidential victory, the slave states had lost the balance of power in the Senate and were facing a future as a perpetual minority after decades of nearly continuous control of the presidency and the Congress. Southerners also felt they could no longer prevent protectionism tariffs such as the Morrill Tariff, which generally placed a greater burden upon the South. The Southern justification for a unilateral right to secede cited the doctrine of states' rights, which had been debated before with the 1798 Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, the Hartford Convention during the War of 1812, and the 1832 Nullification Crisis with regard to tariffs. Before Lincoln took office, seven states seceded from the union, establishing a rebel government, the Confederate States of America on February 9, 1861. They took control of federal forts and property within their boundaries, with little resistance from President Buchanan. Ironically, by seceding, the rebel states weakened any claim to the territories that were in dispute, cancelled any obligation for the North to return fugitive slaves, and assured easy passage of many bills and amendments they had long opposed. The Civil War began when Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard opened fire upon Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina on April 12, 1861. There were no casualties in this battle but there would be in the years to come. ==Narrative summary== Lincoln's victory in the U.S. presidential election, 1860 triggered South Carolina's secession from the Union. Lincoln was not even on the ballot in nine states in the South. Leaders in South Carolina had long been waiting for an event that might unite the South against the antislavery forces. Once the election returns were certain, a special South Carolina convention declared "that the Union now subsisting between South Carolina and other states under the name of the 'United States of America' is hereby dissolved." By February 1, 1861, six more Southern states had seceded. On February 7, the seven states adopted a provisional constitution for the Confederate States of America and established their capital at Montgomery, Alabama. The pre-war peace conference of 1861 met at Washington, D.C. The remaining southern states as yet remained in the Union. Several seceding states seized federal forts within their boundaries; President Buchanan made no military response. Less than a month later, on March 4, 1861, Abraham Lincoln was sworn in as President of the United States. In his Inauguration address, he argued that the Constitution was a ''more perfect union'' than the earlier Articles of Confederation, that it was a binding contract, and called the secession "legally void". He stated he had no intent to invade southern states, but would use force to maintain possession of federal property. His speech closed with a plea for restoration of the bonds of union. The South, particularly South Carolina, ignored the plea, and on April 12, the South fired upon the Federal troops stationed at Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina until the troops surrendered. Lincoln called for all of the states in the Union to send troops to recapture the forts and preserve the Union. Most Northerners believed that a quick brutal victory for the Union would crush the nascent rebellion, and so Lincoln only called for volunteers for 90 days. This resulted in four more states voting to secede. Once Virginia seceded, the Confederate capital was moved to Richmond, Virginia. Even though the Southern states had seceded, there was considerable anti-secessionist sentiment within several of the seceding states. Eastern Tennessee, in particular, was a hotbed for pro-Unionism. Winston County, Alabama issued a resolution of secession from the state of Alabama. The ''Red Strings (American politics)'' were a prominent Southern anti-secession group. Winfield Scott created the Anaconda Plan as the Union's main plan of attack during the war. ===Eastern Theater 1861–1863=== As a Confederate force was built up by July 1861 at Manassas, Virginia, a march by Union troops under the command of Maj. Gen. Irvin McDowell on the Confederate forces there was halted in the First Battle of Bull Run, or ''First Manassas'', whereupon they were forced back to Washington, D.C., by Confederate troops under the command of Generals Joseph E. Johnston and P.G.T. Beauregard. It was in this battle that Confederate General Stonewall Jackson received the name of "Stonewall" because he stood like a stone wall against Union troops. Alarmed at the loss, and in an attempt to prevent more slave states from leaving the Union, the Congress of the United States passed the Crittenden-Johnson Resolution on July 25 of that year, which stated that the war was being fought to preserve the Union and not to end slavery. Major General George B. McClellan took command of the Union Army of the Potomac on July 26 (he was briefly general-in-chief of all the Union armies, but was subsequently relieved of that post in favor of Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck), and the war began in earnest in 1862. Upon the strong urging of President Lincoln to begin offensive operations, McClellan invaded Virginia in the spring of 1862 by way of the Virginia Peninsula between the York River (Virginia) and James River (Virginia) , southeast of Richmond. Although McClellan's army reached the gates of Richmond in the Peninsula Campaign, Joseph E. Johnston halted his advance at the Battle of Seven Pines, then Robert E. Lee defeated him in the Seven Days Battles and forced his retreat. McClellan was stripped of many of his troops to reinforce John Pope (military officer)'s Union Army of Virginia. Pope was beaten spectacularly by Lee in the Northern Virginia Campaign and the Second Battle of Bull Run in August. Emboldened by Second Bull Run, the Confederacy made its first invasion of the North, when General Lee led 55,000 men of the Army of Northern Virginia across the Potomac River into Maryland on September 5. Lincoln then restored Pope's troops to McClellan. McClellan and Lee fought at the Battle of Antietam near Sharpsburg, Maryland, on September 17, 1862, the bloodiest single day in American history. Lee's army, checked at last, returned to Virginia before McClellan could destroy it. Antietam is considered a Union victory because it halted Lee's invasion of the North and provided justification for Lincoln to announce his Emancipation Proclamation. When the cautious McClellan failed to follow up on Antietam, he was replaced by Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside. Burnside suffered near-immediate defeat at the Battle of Fredericksburg on December 13, 1862, when over ten thousand Union soldiers were killed or wounded. After the battle, Burnside was replaced by Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker . Hooker, too, proved unable to defeat Lee's army; despite outnumbering the Confederates by more than two to one, he was humiliated in the Battle of Chancellorsville in May 1863. He was replaced by Maj. Gen. George G. Meade during Lee's second invasion of the North, in June. Meade defeated Lee at the Battle of Gettysburg (July 1–July 3, 1863), the largest battle in North American history, which is sometimes considered the war's Turning point of the American Civil War. Lee's army suffered 28,000 casualties (versus Meade's 23,000), again forcing it to retreat to Virginia, never to launch a full-scale invasion of the North again. ===Western Theater 1861–1863=== While the Confederate forces had numerous successes in the Eastern theater, they crucially failed in the West. Confederate forces were driven from Missouri early in the war as result of the Battle of Pea Ridge. Leonidas Polk's invasion of Kentucky enraged the citizens who previously had declared neutrality in the war, turning that state against the Confederacy. Nashville, Tennessee fell to the Union early in 1862. Most of the Mississippi River was opened with the taking of Battle of Island Number Ten and New Madrid, Missouri, and then Memphis, Tennessee. New Orleans, Louisiana, was captured in May, 1862, allowing the Union forces to begin moving up the Mississippi as well. Only the fortress city of Vicksburg, Mississippi prevented unchallenged Union control of the entire river. Braxton Bragg's second Confederate invasion of Kentucky was repulsed at the confused and bloody Battle of Perryville and he was narrowly defeated by William S. Rosecrans at the Battle of Stones River in Tennessee. The one clear Confederate victory in the West was the Battle of Chickamauga in Tennessee, near the Georgia (U.S. state) border, where Bragg, reinforced by the corps of James Longstreet (from Lee's army in the east), defeated Rosecrans despite the heroics of George Henry Thomas and forced him to retreat to Chattanooga, which Bragg then besieged. The Union's key strategist and tactician in the west was Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, who won victories at Battle of Fort Henry, Battle of Fort Donelson, Battle of Shiloh, Battle of Vicksburg, and Chattanooga, Tennessee, driving Confederate forces out of Tennessee. ===Trans-Mississippi Theater 1861–1865=== Though geographically isolated from the battles to the east, a number of military actions took place in the Trans-Mississippi theater, a region encompassing states and territories to the west of the Mississippi River. In 1861 Confederates launched a successful campaign into the territory of present day Arizona and New Mexico. Residents in the southern portions of this territory adopted a secession ordinance of their own and requested that Confederate forces stationed in nearby Texas assist them in removing Union forces still stationed there. The Confederate territory of Arizona was proclaimed by Col. John Baylor after victories at Mesilla, New Mexico, and the capture of several Union forces. Confederate troops were unsuccessful in attempts to press northward in the territory and withdrew from Arizona completely in 1862 as Union reinforcements arrived from California. :''The Battle of Glorieta Pass was a small skirmish in terms of both numbers involved and losses (140 Federal, 190 Confederate). Yet the issues were large, and the battle decisive in resolving them. The Confederates might well have taken Fort Union and Denver had they not been stopped at Glorieta. As one Texan put it, "if it had not been for those devils from Pike's Peak, this country would have been ours.'' :''This small battle smashed any possibilty of the Confederacy taking New Mexico and the far west territories. In April, Union volunteers from California pushed the remaining Confederates out of present-day Arizona at the Battle of Pichaco Peak. In the eastern part of the United States, the fighting dragged on for three more years, but in the Southwest the war was over.'' [http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/twhp/wwwlps/lessons/117glorietaraton/117facts3.htm] The Union mounted several attempts to capture the trans-Mississippi regions of Texas and Louisiana from 1862 until the war's end. With ports to the east under blockade or capture, Texas in particular became a blockade-running haven. Referred to as the "back door" of the Confederacy, Texas and western Louisiana continued to provide cotton crops that were transferred overland to Matamoros, Mexico, and shipped to Europe in exchange for supplies. Determined to close this trade, the Union mounted several invasion attempts of Texas, each of them unsuccessful. Confederate victories at Galveston, Texas, and the Second Battle of Sabine Pass repulsed invasion forces. The Union's disastrous Red River Campaign in western Louisiana, including a defeat at the Battle of Mansfield, effectively ended the Union's final invasion attempt of the region until the final fall of the Confederacy. Isolated from events in the east, the Civil War continued in the Trans-Mississippi theater for several months after Robert E. Lee's surrender. The last battle of the war occurred at Battle of Palmito Ranch in southern Texas—ironically a Confederate victory. ===Fall of the Confederacy 1864–1865=== [[Image:President-Jefferson-Davis.jpg|thumb|left|Jefferson Davis
First and only President of the Confederate States of America]] At the beginning of 1864, Grant was promoted to lieutenant general and given command of all Union armies. He chose to make his headquarters with the Army of the Potomac although Meade remained the actual commander of that army. He left Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman in command of most of the western armies. Grant understood the concept of total war and believed, along with Lincoln and Sherman, that only the utter defeat of Confederate forces and their economic base would bring an end to the war. Therefore, scorched earth tactics would be required in some important theaters. He devised a coordinated strategy that would strike at the heart of Confederacy from multiple directions: Grant, Meade, and Benjamin Franklin Butler (politician) against Lee near Richmond; Franz Sigel in the Shenandoah Valley; Sherman to invade Georgia (U.S. state), defeat Joseph E. Johnston, and capture Atlanta; George Crook and William W. Averell to operate against railroad supply lines in West Virginia; Nathaniel Prentiss Banks to capture Mobile, Alabama. Union forces in the East attempted to maneuver past Lee and fought several battles during that phase of the Eastern campaign, known as Grant's Overland Campaign. An attempt to outflank Lee from the south failed under Butler, who was ''corked'' into the Bermuda Hundred Campaign river bend. Grant was tenacious and, despite astonishing losses (over 66,000 casualties in six weeks), kept pressing the Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. He pinned down the Confederate army in the Siege of Petersburg, where the two armies engaged in trench warfare for over nine months. After two failed attempts (under Sigel and David Hunter) to seize key points in the Shenandoah Valley, Grant finally found a commander, Philip Sheridan, aggressive enough to prevail in the Valley Campaigns of 1864. Sheridan was sent as a result of a raid by the aggressive Jubal Anderson Early, whose corps reached the outer defenses of Washington, alarming the federal government, before withdrawing back to the Valley. Sheridan proved to be more than a match for Early, and defeated him in a series of battles, decisively at Battle of Cedar Creek, and proceeded to destroy the agricultural and industrial base of the Valley, similar to the scorched-earth tactics Sherman would employ in Georgia. Meanwhile, Sherman marched from Chattanooga to Atlanta, Georgia (U.S. state), defeating Generals Joseph E. Johnston and John B. Hood. The fall of Atlanta on September 2, 1864, was a significant factor in re-electing Abraham Lincoln. Leaving Atlanta, and his base of supplies, Sherman's army marched with an unclear destination, laying waste to much of the rest of Georgia in his celebrated ''Sherman's March to the Sea'', reaching the sea at Savannah, Georgia in December, 1864. Burning towns and plantations as they went, Sherman's armies hauled off crops and killed livestock to retaliate and to deny use of these economic assets to the Confederacy, a consequence of Grant's scorched earth doctrine. When Sherman turned north through South Carolina and North Carolina to approach the Virginia lines from the south, it was the end for Lee and his men, and for the Confederacy. Lee attempted to escape from the besieged Petersburg and link up with Johnston in North Carolina, but he was overtaken by Grant. He surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia on April 9, 1865, at Appomattox Court House. Johnston surrendered his troops to Sherman shortly thereafter. The Battle of Palmito Ranch, fought on May 13, 1865, in the far south of Texas, was the last land battle of the war and ended, ironically, with a Confederate victory. All Confederate land forces surrendered by June 1865. Confederate naval units surrendered as late as November 1865, with the last actions being attacks on private New England whaling ships by the CSS Shenandoah in the Bering Strait through June 28, 1865. == Reasons for the Outcome == Why the Union prevailed (or why the Confederacy was defeated) in the Civil War has been a subject of extensive analysis and debate. Advantages widely believed to have contributed to the Union's success include: *The more industrialized economy of the North, which aided in the production of arms and munitions. *Strong compatible railroad links between Union cities, which allowed for the relatively quick movement of troops. (It should be noted, however, that the Confederacy had more railroads per capita than any other country at the time.) *The Union's larger population and greater immigration during the war, allowing for a larger pool of potential conscripts. *The Union's possession of the U.S. merchant marine fleet and naval ships, which led to its successful Union blockade. *The Union's more established government, which may have resulted in less infighting and a more streamlined conduction of the war. *The moral cause assigned to the war by the Emancipation Proclamation, which may have given the Union additional incentive to continue the war effort, and also may have encouraged international support. *The recruitment of African-Americans, including many freed slaves, into the Union Army after the Emancipation Proclamation took effect, thus allowing the Union to tap a population source their enemy ideologically refused to use. In the final weeks of the war, the Confederacy relented and began to allow African-Americans to enlist in the army, but this was only a token effort. *The Confederacy's possible squandering of resources on early audacious conventional offensives and its [http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0HZY/is_1_14/ai_78397581 failure] to fully use its advantages in guerilla warfare against Union communication and transportation infrastructure. *The Confederacy's failure to win military support from any foreign powers, mostly due to the Battle of Antietam, and a well-timed release of the Emancipation Proclamation. == Major land battles == ''Main article: Battles of the American Civil War'' The ten costliest land battles, measured by casualties (killed, wounded, captured, and missing) were: {| border=1 cellpadding=2 ! Battle (State) ! Dates ! Confederate
Commander ! Union Commander ! Conf. Forces ! Union Forces ! Victor ! Casualties |- | Battle of Gettysburg (Pennsylvania) | July 1–July 3, 1863 | Robert E. Lee | George G. Meade | 75,000 | 82,289 | Union | 51,112 (23,049 Union and 28,063 Conf.) |- | Battle of Chickamauga (Georgia (U.S. state)) | September 19–September 20, 1863 | Braxton Bragg | William Rosecrans | 66,326 | 58,222 | Conf. | 34,624 (16,170 Union and 18,454 Conf.) |- | Battle of Chancellorsville (Virginia) | May 1–May 4, 1863 | Robert E. Lee | Joseph Hooker | 60,892 | 133,868 | Conf. | 30,099 (17,278 Union and 12,821 Conf.) |- | Battle of Spotsylvania Court House (Virginia) | May 8–May 19, 1864 | Robert E. Lee | Ulysses S. Grant | 50,000 | 83,000 | Conf. | 27,399 (18,399 Union and 9,000 Conf.) |- | Battle of Antietam (Maryland) | September 17, 1862 | Robert E. Lee | George B. McClellan | 51,844 | 75,316 | Union | 26,134 (12,410 Union and 13,724 Conf.) |- | Battle of the Wilderness (Virginia) | May 5–May 7, 1864 | Robert E. Lee | Ulysses S. Grant | 61,025 | 101,895 | Unknown | 25,416 (17,666 Union and 7,750 Conf.) |- | Second Battle of Manassas (Virginia) | August 29–August 30, 1862 | Robert E. Lee | John Pope (military officer) | 48,527 | 75,696 | Conf. | 25,251 (16,054 Union and 9,197 Conf.) |- | Battle of Stones River (Tennessee) | December 31, 1862 | Braxton Bragg | William S. Rosecrans | 37,739 | 41,400 | Union | 24,645 (12,906 Union and 11,739 Conf.) |- | Battle of Shiloh (Tennessee) | April 6–April 7, 1862 | Albert Sidney Johnston
P.G.T. Beauregard | Ulysses S. Grant | 40,335 | 62,682 | Union | 23,741 (13,047 Union and 10,694 Conf.) |- | Battle of Fort Donelson (Tennessee) | February 13–February 16, 1862 | John B. Floyd
Simon Bolivar Buckner, Sr. | Ulysses S. Grant | 21,000 | 27,000 | Union | 19,455 (2,832 Union and 16,623 Conf.) |} Other major land battles included First Bull Run, The Seven Days, Battle of Perryville, Battle of Fredericksburg, Battle of Vicksburg, Battle of Chattanooga, the Siege of Petersburg, and the battles of Battle of Franklin and Battle of Nashville. There was also Valley Campaign, the Atlanta Campaign, Red River Campaign, Missouri Campaign, Valley Campaigns of 1864, and many coastal and river battles. == Major naval battles == ''Main article: Battles of the American Civil War'' Major naval battles included Battle of Island Number Ten, Battle of Hampton Roads, Battle of Memphis, Battle of Drewry's Bluff, Battle of Fort Hindman, and Battle of Mobile Bay. In addition to this, a Union blockade of Confederate ports throughout the war attempted to deny supplies to the CSA. ==Civil War leaders== One of the reasons that the US Civil War wore on as long as it did and the battles were so fierce was that leaders on both sides had formerly served in the United States armed forces together, many, including Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee, during the Mexican-American War between 1846 and 1848. Most were graduates of the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, where Lee had been commandant for 3 years in the 1850s. Significant Southern leaders included Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, Joseph E. Johnston, Thomas J. Jackson, James Longstreet, P.G.T. Beauregard, John Mosby, Braxton Bragg, John Bell Hood, JEB Stuart, William Mahone, Judah P. Benjamin, Jubal Anderson Early, and Nathan Bedford Forrest. Northern leaders included Abraham Lincoln, William H. Seward, Edwin M. Stanton, Ulysses S. Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman, George H. Thomas, George B. McClellan, Henry W. Halleck, Joseph Hooker, Ambrose Burnside, Irvin McDowell, Philip Sheridan, George Crook, George Armstrong Custer, Kit Carson, John E. Wool, George G. Meade, Winfield Hancock, Elihu Washburne, Abner Read, and Robert Gould Shaw. Five men who served as Union officers eventually became presidents of the United States: Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James Garfield, Benjamin Harrison, and William McKinley. Although not being allowed to fight in the civil war due to the fact that she was a woman, Clara Barton became the leader of the Union of Nurses and was widely known as the "Angel of the Battlefield." She experienced the horror of 16 wars, helping behind the lines to heal the injured soldiers. Clara organized a relief program that helped to better distribute supplies to wounded soldiers of both the North and South. ==Aftermath== As slavery and constitutional questions concerning states' rights were widely viewed as causes for the war, the victorious Union government sought to end slavery and to strip the states of their powers to define citizenship and to deny residents fundamental rights. During the early part of the war, Lincoln, to hold together his war coalition of Republicans and War Democrats, emphasized preservation of the Union as the sole Union objective of the war, but with the Emancipation Proclamation, announced in September 1862 and put into effect four months later, Lincoln adopted the abolition of slavery as a second mission. The Emancipation Proclamation declared all slaves held in territory then under Confederate control to be "then, thenceforth, and forever free." It had little initial effect but served to commit the United States to the goal of ending slavery. The Proclamation would be put into practical effect in Confederate territory captured over the remainder of the war. The border States of Missouri and Maryland moved during the course of the war to end slavery, and in December 1864, the Congress proposed the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution to the United States Constitution, barring slavery throughout the United States; the 13th Amendment was fully ratified by the end of 1865. The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, defining citizenship and giving the Federal government broad power to require the States to provide equal protection of the laws was adopted in 1868. The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution guaranteeing black Americans the right to vote was ratified in 1870. The 14th and 15th Amendments reversed the effects of the Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision of 1857, but the 14th Amendment, in particular, had unanticipated and far-reaching effects. The expansion of fundamental rights under the 14th Amendment's first clause, requiring due process and equal protection for all citizens, was not anticipated by its sponsors. Under this clause the Supreme Court of the United States later recognized such rights as the right to abortion, the right to birth control, the right to medicine, and the right to marriage. According to data from the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, the last surviving Union veteran of the conflict, Albert Woolson, died on August 2, 1956 at the age of 109, and the last Confederate veteran, John Salling, died on March 16, 1958, at the age of 112. However, William Marvel investigated the claims of both for a 1991 piece in the Civil War history magazine ''Blue & Gray''. Using census information, he found that Salling was born in 1858, far too late to have served in the Civil War. In fact, he concluded, "Every one of the last dozen recognized Confederates was bogus." He found Woolson to be the last true veteran of the Civil War on either side; he had served as a drummer boy late in the war. After the war, the Grand Army of the Republic, a fraternal organization open to Union war veterans, was founded in 1866. Confederate veterans formed the United Confederate Veterans in 1889. In 1905, a campaign medal was authorized for all Civil War veterans, known as the Civil War Campaign Medal. Many of the Union military leaders, such as Philip Sheridan, Sherman, and George Armstrong Custer would take the concept of scorched earth and apply it to the Indian Wars on the Great Plains, which resulted in ethnic cleansing and attempted genocide. From the U.S. presidential election, 1876 until the U.S. presidential election, 1964, Georgia (U.S. State), Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas U.S. presidential election maps to the Republican Party (United States), with South Carolina and Louisiana making an exception only once each. Most other states that had seceded voted overwhelmingly against Republican presidential nominees also, with the same trend predominantly applying in state elections too. This phenomenon was known as the Solid South. However, starting with the election of 1964, this trend has almost completely reversed, and most of the Southern states have now become Republican strongholds. A good deal of ill will among the Southern survivors resulted from the consequent shift of political power to the North, the destruction inflicted on the South by the Union armies as the end of the war approached, and the Reconstruction program instituted in the South by the Union after the war's end. Bitterness about the war continued for decades after the war ended. Many southerners still do not accept the outcome, and it entrenched northern antipathy toward the south. Confederate flags and bumper stickers that say "The South shall rise again" are sometimes seen in various parts of the South. Heated political debates still occur over the use of symbols like Confederate Flags and images of Lincoln in public life. When asked, the flag's proponents argue that it does not signify any type of prejudice or racism, but is instead a symbol of the bond the southern states share; others, especially black Americans, disagree. ==Books== ===Histories and biographies=== *Eicher, John H., & Eicher, David J.: ''Civil War High Commands'', Stanford University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8047-3641-3 *Shelby Foote, ''The Civil War, A Narrative'' (3 volumes), Random House, 1974, ISBN 0-394-74913-8 *Douglas S. Freeman, ''R. E. Lee, A Biography'' (4 volumes), Scribners, 1940 *Freeman, Douglas S., ''Lee's Lieutenants: A Study in Command'' (3 volumes), Scribners, 1946, ISBN 0-684-85979-3 *James M. McPherson, ''Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford History of the United States)'', Oxford University Press, 1988, ISBN 0-195-03863-0 *Woodword, C. Vann, Ed., ''Mary Chesnut's Civil War'', Yale University Press, 1981, ISBN 0-300-02979-9 ===Novels about the war=== *Stephen Crane, ''The Red Badge of Courage'' *Margaret Mitchell, ''Gone With the Wind'' *Jeffrey Shaara, ''Gods and Generals'' *Shaara, Jeffrey, ''The Last Full Measure'' *Michael Shaara, ''The Killer Angels'' *Jules Verne, ''North against South'' (''Nord Contre Sud'') *Ishmael Reed, ''Flight to Canada'' ==See also== *List of American Civil War topics *List of people associated with the American Civil War *African Americans in the Civil War *Photography and photographers of the American Civil War *Canada and the American Civil War *Illinois in the Civil War *Rail transport in the American Civil War == External links == *[http://sunsite.utk.edu/civil-war/ The American Civil War Homepage] *[http://www.archives.gov/research_room/research_topics/civil_war/civil_war_photos.html Civil War photos] at the National Archives *[http://sunsite.utk.edu/civil-war/generals.html University of Tennessee: US Civil War Generals] *[http://www.civilwarhome.com Shotgun's Home of the American Civil War] *[http://www.us-civilwar.com American Civil War] *[http://www.pbs.org/civilwar ''The Civil War''], a Public Broadcasting Service documentary by Ken Burns * Individual state's contributions to the Civil War: [http://www.militarymuseum.org/HistoryCW.html California], [http://www.floridamemory.com/OnlineClassroom/FloridaCivilWar/index.cfm Florida], [http://www.illinoiscivilwar.org/ Illinois #1], [http://www.rootsweb.com/~ilcivilw/ Illinois #2], [http://www.ohiocivilwar.com/ Ohio], [http://www.pacivilwar.com/ Pennsylvania] * Alexander Hamilton Stephens' Cornerstone Speech[http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?documentprint=76] American Civil War Civil wars Rebellions in the United States bs:Američki građanski rat nds:Amerikaansche Börgerorlog
American Civil War
''Part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Wars'' ---- ==Introduction== This section is weak. ==Naming Conventions== The introduction as it was (before 2005-5-5), had almost as many inaccuracies as facts, and bore too much anti-South hatred. I am not from the South, but there is simply no reason for such hatred and distortion of historical reality. What is needed is something neutral and intelligent. As it stands now, the section reads like a comic book or a badly written 140-year-old political tract. It was so badly organized and so poorly written, that is was largely unreadable. The current section (2005-5-5) is greatly expanded, very thorough, very fair, and can eventually be integrated (he he) with a stronger Introduction. * And now its a polemic against Lincoln --User:JimWae 06:34, 2005 Feb 5 (UTC) :No. It states exactly what Lincoln indeed said -- without comment. **2 things ** the name of the war in part depends on outcome. :That is your very unique POV. :The War was between the states, which is why that is the favored term among real historians -- not among amateurs. :As clearly explained, Civil War is the preferred term, because that it the term most often used. But it is an inaccurate term. :On the other hand, "English Civil War" is indeed an accurate term, because the factions were distributed throughout the kingdom. Society was in disarray, and factions were fighting over control of the government. :Similarly, when England fought Scotland -- even when they were governed by the same monarch -- it is never described as a Civil War. Scotland and England are too separate territories. :To call it a war of independence, when they lost is just confusing & an obvious POV :You didn't read the correction. It clearly states that Southern Heritage groups prefer that term, and why they say they do. :This is a simple fact. It says nowhere that we should start calling the war by what the Southrern Heritage groups call it. *that makes no attempt to cope with the results. The result was 1 nation, so it makes sense to view it as a contest within 1 nation :You are confusing results with description. You are proposing a new term for the war: "The War that Created One Nation." *you have added your personal POV instead. :No. You are proposing a novel interpretation based on your own POV which you are just now inventing. The war was not named on results. Nobody has ever said that before you. That is your own POV. :The war is named based on what occurred. It is past tense because it was a historical event. Lincoln wished to interpret that one way: Thus the terms "Rebellion," "Insurrection," "Civil War." That, too, is POV. We conventionally use "Civil War" because that has the most mileage behind it, and because it is shorter. "Civil War" is by no means neutral. It is just the term most non-historians are used to. :It is universally acknowledge by both parties in the war that "War Between the States" is an acceptable compromise -- and it is this term which had official sanction. * -To call it a war of independence, when they lost is just confusing That makes no sense. You are aggressively insisting on your own POV, and expecting people to understand you. Southerners said they were fighting to maintain the independence they won at secession. This is clearly explained in the emendation to the section. **& an obvious POV You are insisting that anything that is not your POV is POV. Thus, when you read anything neutral, you see only POV. **that makes no attempt to cope with the results. This is irrelevant. Once again, this is your novel argument that wars are named for results. It is POV. :By your thinking, The Mexican-American War should be "Manifest Destiny War" or the "War to Create the American Southwest." World War II would become the "War to Destroy Nazis and ts," or the "War that Resulted in the Cold War." :Come on already. ***The result was 1 nation, so it makes sense to view it as a contest within 1 nation - you have added your personal POV instead - ***do you deny the USA is 1 nation? :Irrelevant. See above. *the name of the war should also be descriptive from the viewpoint of other nations. From their viewpoint, "civil war" makes complete sense From the viewpoint of other nations, it was a war that would decide whether the South would be independent or be part of the Union. Read Lord Acton. :It was a war between American States -- even if these states became subdivisions of the Union thereafter. :However, most are familiar with the very inaccurate "Civil War," which is also shorter and easier to say. Thus the convention. :What this article needed was an intelligent definition of civil war at the top, which is indeed provided in the emendation. :Please read it all next time, before you wipe out the entire section again.--User:Wighson 03:25, 2005 Feb 6 (UTC) In the greater context that this article is about a War, it seems out of balance that so much attention is given to the names of the conflict. Maybe a separate article would be appropriate for all this detail about naming convenions. User:Vaoverland 08:33, Feb 6, 2005 (UTC) *'''War of Southern Independence'' is INTRODUCED at least 3 times in Introduction - whole section needs to be made more concise --User:JimWae 19:23, 2005 Feb 7 (UTC) The term "southern partisans" is used in a very redundant manner in the naming section. It's in there about half a dozen times in a row, beginning several successive sentences. This sounds choppy and poorly written. Somebody should clean it upUser:Rangerdude 04:53, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC) ==Map== The map is inaccurate, and needs to be replaced. It is anachronistic: it shows states which did not exist 1861-1865. It does not show the Confederate Territory of Arizona which had seceded from the larger Territory of New Mexico. It also shows West Virginia as if separate from the beginning, when in fact it was part of Virginia and the Confederacy until Lincoln declared it had seceded from Virginia in 1863. ---s'not much, the map is still anachronistic, but its color scheme is more appropriate.(blue and gray, instead of red and blue) not good for an encyclopedia to take sides on an ongoing culture war... : Not to mention Alaska and Hawaii, which were not even U.S. ''territories'' at the time. User:Mateo SA | User talk:Mateo SA 15:10, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC) ==Are the North & the South at Peace now?== From the article: :A great deal of ill-will among the Southern survivors resulted from the total warfare practiced during the war by the Union armies and the "reconstruction" program forced on the former Confederacy by the Union victors. I think this is misleading on several counts: * I don't think the Union used "total warfare", at least not the definition used in Wikipedia and elsewhere. Sherman's March to the Sea is probably the closest to being total warfare and was intended to destroy the morale of the entire south, but they did not specifically target civilians, rather any property that could aid the south. * Does "reconstruction" really need to be in quotes? It should be an article link if anything. * I think it's misleading to explain ill-will as resulting purely from Union misdeeds. I mean, the south lost a major war, slavery, and saw their political power wane (prior to the civil war, the two major power blocks of states where slaves states and non-slave states and even without the direct after effects of the war, the south lost a lot of power). I don't think ill-will needs to be explained to this extent as being the result of northern misdeeds. User:Daniel Quinlan 00:50, Aug 14, 2003 (UTC) ** I don't think that one should attempt to put a generic label on the type of warfare practiced by one side or the other. The fact is that the type of warfare conducted varied by geographic location, by commander, and by how far along into the war it was. You can't just simplistically say that one side fought this way and the other fought another way. Didn't work like that. ** As far as reconstruction is concerned you have different types of reconstruction. You have Lincoln's conciliatory policy that led to results like Isaac Murphy and you have the radical reconstruction that entailed dividing the South up into military districts. Reconstruction led to a variety of things, it led to land-grant universities which was good, it led to penetration of railroads into the South which was good, etc. but it also led to terrible graft and corruption. You are better off just stating a variety of facts and not trying to boil down "reconstruction" as all "good" or all "bad".User:Ark30inf 01:03, 14 Aug 2003 (UTC) I don't see any point in trying to discuss the various aspects of Reconstruction here, it should just be mentioned and have its own article. User:RickK 02:01, 14 Aug 2003 (UTC) : Check the article. There already was one, so I made according changes (plus fixing the issues as I saw them). User:Daniel Quinlan 02:19, Aug 14, 2003 (UTC) ::I think the article is better after the change and thats what matters. All of the Civil War stuff appears to need work in the long run though.User:Ark30inf 02:29, 14 Aug 2003 (UTC) :::The fact that I think its better is not all that matters, the fact that it is better is all that matters. Thought I would clear that up.User:Ark30inf 02:30, 14 Aug 2003 (UTC) ==Name of the War== Why on earth was this moved from its correct name? User:Tannin :: I did not move it, but I certainly agree with it. ''Civil War'' is the proper name we have (somewhat egotistically) given to this conflict. We added ''American'' to that proper name to differentiate it from generic civil war elsewhere on the globe. Given that, all of it should be capitalized. By changing it to not be capitalized you are referring to ANY American civil war and not the specific one whose proper name is ''Civil War''. We shouldn't make ''World War Two'' into ''World war two'' and likewise shouldn't make ''American Civil War'' into ''American civil war''. IMO. User:Ark30inf 13:24, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC) ------- Just so, Ark30inf. Its name (rightly or wrongly) is American Civil War, and proper names are always capitalised. We might as well write ''George w. bush''. I was going to wait to see if CGS had a reason for the move, but on reflection, I don't see how there could be one, so I moved it back. (Sorry CGS.) User:Tannin 13:33, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC) I don't see it as a proper noun. It was the civil war of the Americans, how is it a proper noun? Naming_conventions#Lowercase_second_and_subsequent_words. BTW, I was I who moved it. User:Cgs 14:27, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC). :''War of the Roses'' is a proper name and is capitalized. ''American Civil War'' is also a proper name even though there could be an article called ''American civil'' which would deal with the generic concept of any non-specific civil war in America. But this is a specific civil war called American Civil WarUser:Ark30inf 15:28, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC) Think of it this way: all wars have a name (which is, of course, a proper noun). Some wars have two or three names: e.g., World War II, Second World War, Great Patriotic War - all three are names for the same war. Similarly, the First World War, World War 1 and the Great War. I could call WW2 the ''war against Hitler and Tojo'' if I wanted to, but note that this is ''not'' capitalised, as it's not the actual name of the war, just a term I made up. So, if I were to call the American Civil War (which is its internationally accepted proper name) ... er ... ''the US slavery war'', that's fine too - but note that it is not capitalised because it's not the war's name. Same rule as for people. I write ''George W Bush'' with capitals (because that is his name) but ''the guy in the top job'' in lower case because, although it's the same person I'm talking about, I'm not using his actual name. Make sense? User:Tannin ---- ==Causes of the Civil War== I'm amazed by some people's ignorance in here. The Civil War was NOT STARTED because of slavery. Slavery was NOT the core issue. If you really want to know why, yes, it was states rights. It was primarily the TARIFFS that prompted South Carolinas succession. (hence their naming a tariff "Tariff of Abominations" The Confederacy did NOT secede because of slavery, they seceded because they believed the Federal Government was oppressing them on the counts of Tariffs and votes. Please, for the love of history, make sure your facts are right. User:Agiamba Recent changes were made to boil down the wars causes to, of course, the slavery issue. The changes diminished the role of States Rights as a concept that stood on its own and instead indicated that it was merely a reflection of the slavery issue. I am not opposed to indicating the role of slavery, which was critical, but I am opposed to dismissing other causes. I'm not in favor of "boiling down" as opposed to providing more information in this case. The Civil War was the most complex political eruption in US history. It is impossible to distill such a complex event down to the sentence "slavery war", at least w/o choosing the point of view that that the rest of the issues are not real, a point of view that is disputed. : No, recent changes were made that implied slavery was not the core issue when it was. It certainly was not the only cause, but it was the core issue, and I restored that to the article. I did not "boil down" anything. Compare the current text (after my edit) to the text of several days ago. User:Daniel Quinlan 01:33, Oct 24, 2003 (UTC) One cannot rationally deny the role of slavery in the conflict (though many do). But you can't rationally ignore the complexities either. For example, the people of my home State elected a generally pro-Union secession convention, the major State newspaper was pro-Union. That convention voted NOT to secede and dismissed. It only reconvened, and the newspaper only altered its position, after Lincoln's call for troops. The convention, and the newspaper, stated that the primary trigger for the change was the call to supress the seceded States. If you were to say that the Southern States seceded over the slavery you would be correct for Deep South states, but not as correct for the States of the Upper South which were responding to the administration's actions. Arkansas', though very involved with the slavery issue, specifically seceded in response to "coercion", definitely a States Rights issue. Was it inclined towards its fellow Southern states due to the slavery issue? Yes, but it had declined to secede until the call for troops. Also there is the matter of changing motives of the South. If you asked why Alabama went to war in 1861 the slavery motive would be high as stated in their secession resolution. But if you ask why Alabama was fighting in 1864 then independence would have been high. : Why did States Rights become an issue? It wasn't due to slavery? User:Daniel Quinlan 01:33, Oct 24, 2003 (UTC) Similarly, the United States did not enter the war to end slavery. A few abolitionists certainly did, but not the United States as a matter of policy. Lincoln definitely stated that he would not interfere with slavery if that would keep the Union together. The primary immediate cause of the war in the north was the firing on the flag at Fort Sumter which, due to patriotism and pride, demanded a response. If you say that the war in 1861 was fought by the north over slavery you would be closer to wrong. But if you said that in 1864 the north was fighting to end slavery then you would be closer to right because Lincoln made it so and changed the northern reason for war with the Emancipation Proclamation. : No, it didn't enter purely for that reason, but the states seceded to preserve slavery. User:Daniel Quinlan 01:33, Oct 24, 2003 (UTC) Oddly enough, as the war became more slavery related for the Union, it became less slavery related for the South. As I said, complex event. : The sequence of events was complicated and individual rationalization perhaps too, but the core issue was still slavery. User:Daniel Quinlan 01:33, Oct 24, 2003 (UTC) I'm mentioning this here because I think that recent edits dismiss much of the complexity in an effort to boil down the war to the lowest common denominator. I think that does the reader a disservice and plays into the stereotypical view of the war. So I wanted to give fair warning. When I get a chance soon I will attempt to put some of this complexity into the article in a fair and neutral way.User:Ark30inf 23:40, 23 Oct 2003 (UTC) : You're taking a very simplistic view of the complexity of the slavery issue and the numerous problems it caused. If you look at the history of the Civil War, the numerous compromises (all related to slavery that were necessary to keep the South in the Union), and the precipitating events, all relate back to slavery. Yes, southerners can rationalize all they want about states' rights and northern aggression, but what issue would there have been without the south holding slaves? : I think it's a bit deceptive to claim that I somehow "dumbed down" the article, that the article is now falling in line with the stereotypical view, or that adding "complexity" will improve the article. Do you really think the Civil War would have happened without slavery as an issue dividing the north and the south? Have you fallen prey to the revisionist history that it wasn't ultimately about slavery at all? : Perhaps I should just let the text changes speak for me:
# 14:38, Oct 18, 2003 <- what was there before (perhaps simplistic) # 13:00, Oct 23, 2003 <- what I found (revisionist Southern denial) # 13:29, Oct 23, 2003 <- what I left (Mmm... good!) # But there is no question that the salient issue in the minds of the public and popular press of the time, and the histories written since, was the issue of slavery. Slavery had been abolished in most northern states, but was legal and important to the economy of the Confederacy, which depended on cheap agricultural labor. # There is little question that the salient issues in the minds of the public and popular press of the time, were those of slavery, state sovereignty (for the South), and [reservation of the union (for the North). Slavery had been abolished in most northern states but was vitally important to the economy of the Confederacy. which depended on cheap agricultural labor. The dichotomies between how slavery was perceived and the nature of the union were at the heart of the conflict. # There is little question that the salient issue in the minds of the public and popular press of the time, and the histories written since, was the issue of slavery. Slavery had been abolished in most northern states, but was legal and important to the economy of the Confederacy, which depended on cheap agricultural labor. State sovereignty (for the South) and preservation of the Union (for the North) have both also been cited as issues, but both were reflections of the slavery issue, i.e., could the Federal government force southern states to end slavery or could the southern states leave the Union to preserve slavery?: So, it's longer, more comprehensive, recognizes state sovereignty and preservation of the Union as issues, but does not put it on the same level as slavery, and it's clearly not less information, but that's exactly what you claimed. Anyway, read the text, suggest improvements, I'm game, but we should not apply revisionist southern history that attempts to sweep slavery under the rug to the article. User:Daniel Quinlan 01:33, Oct 24, 2003 (UTC) :: Hmmm, you seem to be judging my additions before I write them. I wrote the above on this page to give the opportunity for discussion before I made changes to such a controversial subject. I have touched nothing. You might at least have given me the courtesy of responding to my concerns rather than going full defensive as if I had reverted your changes and was engaged in an edit war with you. I am leaving Wikipedia, so you do not need to worry about YOUR article, it will remain as you have written it.User:Ark30inf 04:31, 24 Oct 2003 (UTC) ::: I'm sorry to hear you're leaving Wikipedia. User:Daniel Quinlan 15:19, Oct 24, 2003 (UTC) The cause of the secession and the cause of the war are not the same. Considering the two to be equivalent is a major source of disagreement on the issue. ----- Can anyone give a source on the emancipation of the serfs in Russia being a cause of the US Civil War? I have never heard of this. Of to google it myself. User:Rmhermen 15:18, Nov 19, 2003 (UTC) :My printed authorities say nothing about this, and the timing is all wrong anyway; Southern states had said that Lincoln was going to be the last straw, and that was months before serf emancipation. I think the Russian serf theory is one of those lunatic fringe things that always seem to accumulate around familiar topics. Google is not showing me anything. User:Stan Shebs 17:11, 19 Nov 2003 (UTC) ::Fixed. User:Daniel Quinlan 19:45, Nov 19, 2003 (UTC) ---- The Southern States economy was certainly based on what became know as "King Cotton." The problem with this is that the South needed the Northern resources such as ships to transport the cotton to the north and the textile mills of the North to process the cotton. Many of the Northern States had abolished slavery but still(hypocritically)depended on it none the less. England had outlawed slavery in 1805 but bought slave produced cotton from the Southern States during the war. The financial backers and owners of both ships and mills became rich from the slave produced Southern cotton. Many Northerners depended on jobs created by the import of southern cotton. Many citizens of the north feared the release of slaves and the impact it would have on their jobs. Look at the riots that occurred in New York City after the announcement of the conscription of 80,000 men. It finally took Union troops to quell the riots. The quota was never met and the local government eventually paid the fee of $300 each to the Federal Government. It was also possible for men of wealth to buy substitutes which many did. On the issue of States Rights or Slavery being the root of the war I offer this thought. I am from the South and have greatly researched my genealogy and have found that my ancestors served on both sides and even switched sides during the war. Less than 2% of Southerns owned 5 or more slaves. (A slave owner of 20 or more slaves was exempt from service.) Census records bare out the fact that the majority of Southerners were poor dirt farmers with out slaves. It's difficult for me to imagine that these men(who owned no slaves), some even barefoot, would leave their wives and families behind as my great-great-grandfather did to go fight and risk death for the right of some rich plantation owner to get richer through slavery. Slavery is unequivocally wrong yet still exists by some name in the world today. The United States stills suffers issues with States Rights today. The Federal governent taxes the citizens then withholds our tax dollars unless we submit to what can only be called blackmail. For example: no seat belt law no speed limit law--none of our money back for road repair and construction. ---------- I would argue that you did not research well enough. The Secession conventions were overwhelmed by planters. SC at the time had more slaves than whites. MS and Florida were almost fifty--fifty slave to white. The slave population in Texas was growing exponentially. Many white southerners from various social standings feared the idea of a growing free black population. The South seceded because of slavery. It was not a major factor; it was the major factor. However, your family like many other Southern families fought out self defense. Lincoln had made it clear, even before Fort Sumter, that he aimed to get the seceded states back into the Union. So you could argue that the South fought the war over the contention that they had the legal right to secede. But the South seceded because of slavery. Don't argue with us; argue with Alexander H. Stephens and the Cornerstone Speech (March 21, 1861). Don't argue with us; argue with secession declarations of SC, AL, MS, Fl, LA, TX, and GA. Have you read these? If you are into learning the truth and not winning a debate or saving face, I would suggest that you add these and other primary documents to your reading list. --------- Hi, would those Wikipedians with knowledge of the Civil War please take a look at Financial motivations behind the American Civil War and weigh in at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion? It strikes me as interesting, but I can't tell if it's BS or not. Thanks, User:Tualha 00:38, 22 Dec 2003 (UTC) ---- ==Miscellaneous== Regarding removal of the history table--you do agree that the Civil War was part of U.S. history, right? :) What bothers so much about having it included? Someday there may be other specific events in the table--the Great Depression, World War II. I'm not ultra-hung-up on it, but there will be a big fat hole in the history series without the American Civil War section... User:Jengod 09:53, Jan 28, 2004 (UTC) :The Civil War is a specific event - a subject onto itself. It is ''not'' a daughter article of History of the United States is any more than Vietnam War is or yes, even the Great Depression. See Talk:History of the United States for more. --User:Maveric149 ------ Military Developments in the War was missing. Feel free (I'm sure you already do) to murderize it. :) User:Stargoat 06:30, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC) ------ Being a non-American person (I live in Poland), highly interested in the American affairs, think you should give more emphasis to the TRAGEDY of this war; after all, it was a massive tragedy for all Americans, with some 600,000 dead (ca. 300,000 on each side), thousands more maimed and wrecked for life, crying widows and children, lots of property destroyed, and lots of hatred remaining (probably) till this day. "Civil War" certainly isn't a thing Americans should be proud of; there was a similiar, and equally unnecessary event in 17th-century Poland, when the civil war between Polish and Ukrainians (Kossacks) erupted, with the effects similiar to those of the US Civil War (aka War Between The States). -- Critto PS. As for a foreigner, I find it senseless for me to declare myself on either side of the US Civil War. :A good point. Casualties in the U.S. Civil War were several orders of magnitude larger than any war before it. Until the civil war, the loss of 10% of a fighting force in one battle was considered unusually high. However, casualty rates of over 30% were not unknown in most of the major battles in the Civil War. The primary change was technological, with accurate rifles being available on a mass scale that made mass charges a practical suicide mission. I will try to address this when I'm feeling better :-)--User:SteveHFish 02:31, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC) ==Clarity== Being unfamiliar with this topic, I had a hard time following the article. It would be really helpful if, upon mention of each new general, it were mentioned which side they were fighting on. User:Moink 23:07, 22 Jun 2004 ==How Did the Civil War Start?== This article leaves the impression that the first shot of the Civil War was the South Carolinians firing on Fort Sumter on April 12, AFTER Lincoln was inaugurated. The first shot was actually fired on January 9, 1861, BEFORE Lincoln was Inaugurated. The South Carolinians fired upon, hit, and damaged the Union Naval Vessel "The Star of the West". Plese see: [http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/major-anderson-ft-sumter_Dir/star-of-the-west.htm Star of the West] In both the case of firing on the Star of the West and firing on Fort Sumter there were no casualties. The first death in the Civil Was was the the Battle of Baltimore, which is also not mentioned in the article. pjm July 28, 2004 :Actually, I believe that a weapon exploded after the battle of Fort Sumter, causing the first casualities. If one does not including Bleeding Kansas or the John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry. User:Stargoat 20:32, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC) ::That's as maybe. Sumter may not have been the first engagement, but it turned popular opinion in the North against the South, especially in New York where they weren't really backing either side. Oh, and one horse died in the Sumter attack, there were no human casualties. :::Incorrect. According to [http://www.cr.nps.gov/hps/abpp/battles/sc001.htm this site]: ''Although there were no casualties during the bombardment, one Union artillerist was killed and three wounded (one mortally) when a cannon exploded prematurely while firing a salute during the evacuation on April 14.'' --brian0918">User:Brian0918™">User talk:Brian0918 03:14, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC) ---- I do not see anywhere in the article an account of the seceding states seizing federal properties & forts. Nor of what steps Buchanan did or did not take in response to the secessions.--User:JimWae 10:35, 2004 Nov 26 (UTC) ---- ==Miscellaneous== This may have already been mentioned but is it accurate to refer to the events of the various "Indian Wars" as "ethnic cleansing" and "genocide?" Granted cases of the attempted destruction of whole tribes are recorded but on the whole the attempts of the U.S are better characterized as "ethnic minimilization," by herding Natives onto reservations, and "culturacide" by force-educating Indian youth out of their "savage" ways. I don't dispute that it was horrible, just don't think the point was to wipe the Indians, as a racial or ethnic group, from the earth. It would seem much more accurate to refer to the goverments attempts to culturally intergrate Natives into our society. Also if you guys are still arguing about the name you could call it "the War Between the States (American Civil War)" t.W.B.t.S was what it was called at the time and immediatley thereafter. : I agree. The overall treatment of Native Americans by the U.S. government, while certainly harsh, cannot be accurately described as "genocide." The general goal of the government was Indian Removal, not quite extermination. The terms ethnocide and cultural genocide are probably more precise to cover what happened. User:Funnyhat 00:36, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC) ==Jefferson Davis== Is that picture under the narrative summary of events, really of Jefferson Davis? It looks more like Robert E. Lee? :It appears he is older than in the photographs of him that one usually sees. -- User:Decumanus 04:42, 2004 Nov 23 (UTC) ==Green states?== What exactly is the reasoning behind the green states in the image in the article? -- User:Decumanus 04:42, 2004 Nov 23 (UTC) :See the Image talk:Civil war map.gif --User:tomf688">User:Tomf688|User:tomf688 19:51, Nov 23, 2004 (UTC) == Archive old talk? == Should the unheaded older talk section be archived (before June this year)? I find the "contents" section to be near the bottom of the page, disrupting things. --User:tomf688">User:Tomf688|User:tomf688 19:53, Nov 23, 2004 (UTC) :Sounds great to me. A lot of edit wars over now-irrelevant issues. :User:Dino 02:59, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC) ------------- == User:LinkBot/suggestions/American_Civil_War == An User:LinkBot has some possible wiki link suggestions for the American_Civil_War article, and they have been placed on User:LinkBot/suggestions/American_Civil_War for your convenience.
''Tip:'' Some people find it helpful if these suggestions are shown on this talk page, rather than on another page. To do this, just add