American Civil War

American Civil War

The American Civil War was fought between northern states loyal to the Union and southern states that had seceded to form the Confederate States of America. The war effectively ended on April 9, 1865, when Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at the Battle of Appomattox Court House. The Confederacy collapsed, slavery was abolished, and four million enslaved Black people were freed. The Civil War remains the deadliest military conflict in American history.

About American Civil War in brief

Summary American Civil WarThe American Civil War was fought between northern states loyal to the Union and southern states that had seceded to form the Confederate States of America. The Civil War remains the deadliest military conflict in American history, and accounted for more American military deaths than all other wars combined until the Vietnam War. The war effectively ended on April 9, 1865, when Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at the Battle of Appomattox Court House. Much of the South’s infrastructure was destroyed, especially its railroads. The Confederacy collapsed, slavery was abolished, and four million enslaved Black people were freed. Intense combat left between 620,000 and 750,000 soldiers dead, along with an undetermined number of civilians. The mobilization of civilian factories, mines, shipyards, banks, transportation, and food supplies all foreshadowed the impact of industrialization in World War I, World War II, and subsequent conflicts. The practice of slavery in the United States was one of the key political issues of the 19th century. In the 1860 presidential election, Republicans, led by Abraham Lincoln, supported banning slavery in all the U.S. territories. The Southern states viewed this as a violation of their constitutional rights, and as the first step in a grander Republican plan to eventually abolish slavery. Of those states whose legislatures resolved for secession, the first seven voted with split majorities for unionist candidates. Eight states continued to reject unionist calls for those unionists for those remaining slave-holding states.

The two remaining slave states, Delaware and Maryland, were invited to join the Confederacy, but nothing substantial developed due to intervention by federal troops. The Confederate states were never diplomatically recognized as a joint entity by the government of theUnited States, nor by that of any foreign country. The Union and the Confederacy quickly raised volunteer and conscription armies that fought mostly in the South for four years. By one estimate, the war claimed the lives of 10 percent of all Northern men 20–45 years old, and 30% of all Southern white men aged 18–40. The first six states to declare secession had the highest proportions of slaves in their populations, with an average of 49 percent. The second six states with cotton-based economies declared secession and declared secession, with the average slave population of 49%. The first seven states voted for unionists, with a split majority for those Unionist candidates and a majority of the electoral votes for those for Constitutional Unionist Stephen A. Douglas and John Bell Bell. The Republican Party, dominant in the North, secured a plurality of the popular votes; thus Lincoln was elected president. He was the first Republican Party to win the presidency and the first to win a presidential election to win electoral votes nationally; he was also the first GOP candidate to win election to the White House. The last was Democrat Stephen Bell in Tennessee, Tennessee, Virginia, and Kentucky, and the Republican Party’s centered in Virginia in 1864. The U. S. became a republic in 1865.