Secession and Civil War

During the 1850s, tensions between the North and South increased as the nation decided to how to incorporate the vast territories that had been acquired during the Mexican-American War of...

Both the North and the South hoped and even expected, to achieve a quick victory. They knew that a protracted conflict would be disastrous. Many felt that it would be a short war and would be over...

The armies of both the Confederacy and the United States were made of largely working-class young white men. This was especially true after both sides enacted a wartime draft, but allowed the rich...

One of the main effects of the Civil War on contemporary American society is the ongoing association between the South and the Confederacy. Even the terminology used for the war is often different...

The American Civil War lasted almost exactly four years, extending from the Confederacy’s firing on Fort Sumter in South Carolina on April 12, 1861 and ending with the South’s surrender on April 9,...

Interestingly, slavery wasn't the biggest issue in question at the start of the Civil War. The main conflict that sparked the war was the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter in 1861. After this...

The geographical vastness of the South gave it some advantages. These benefited the South for the war both on land and at sea. The South's large size gave it leverage. The South was able to trade...

The physical damage of the Civil War is estimated to total over $1.4 billion. That estimate is based on the value of money in 1865. The destruction caused by the conflict between the states is hard...

During the Civil War, the North and the South used a number of methods to fund the cost of fighting. In the North, for example, the government used taxation to raise 21 percent of the necessary...

In his letter to his son, Robert E. Lee makes it clear that, although he's prepared to defend states's rights, he does not believe that the best way to do that is through secession. He says that he...

President Abraham Lincoln took the step of declaring martial law and suspending civil liberties, including the right of habeas corpus, in Maryland after a riot and subsequent destruction of...

The North had two major weaknesses in the Civil War. The first had to do with its military abilities. The North did not have much of a warrior culture. Many more Northerners than Southerners...

When speaking about the first half of the nineteenth century, the history of sectarian division between North and South really tends to revolve around the problem of slavery. One of the key turning...

African Americans played a major role in the rationale for the war and the debates on its causes. The South left the Union in order to preserve what it considered its right to own African American...

The government of the Confederate States of America (CSA) was, for the short time that it lasted, fairly similar to the government of the United States. The CSA constitution was copied word for...

Lee's son, Custis, had given his father a book on George Washington. The gift enables Lee to delve deep into the condition of the nation in 1861 and how this would be perceived by framers of the...

In the final analysis, I believe that where one stands on the issue is highly dependent on where one places primacy. If freedom is a moral and absolute good, then the war was needed. Southerners...

Institutional and individual racism were absolutely (and still are) issues from the Civil War that were left unresolved by the turn of the twentieth century. The few gains that were won through the...

The Civil War (1861–1865) was the bloodiest war in American history. The primary cause of the war was the status of slavery in the nation and its newly acquired territories. Southerners believed...

One of the struggles that the North had to contend with was that many people—mainly Northern Democrats—were dead set against the war. They felt that some kind of political compromise could've been...

Northern voters warmed to the Republican Party, as it was implacably opposed to the extension of slavery. This issue had been a running sore in American politics for some time, and no white...

By 1860, one could see that the United States was in uncharted territory in terms of its ability to compromise over slavery. Henry Clay, a leader in creating both the Compromise of 1820 and the...

Dorothea Dix and Clara Barton are both recognized for their remarkable humanitarian work during the Civil War (1861–1865). In nineteenth-century America, women played a subordinate role in a...

Manufacturing had always taken a back seat in the South. The northern colonies and later states did not have the climate and soil for vast commercial farming, and so had always been a society of...

The other answers cover many of the similarities and differences between the wars very well. One chief similarity I would emphasize, however, is that both wars were fundamentally about clashes of...

The most important change brought about by this time period were the constitutional changes which ended slavery; gave citizenship to Blacks and gave everyone the right to vote. This was...

In many ways, her diary would likely have stayed the same. In the diary, she outlines the events of historical battles and class struggles and decries racism, sexism, and abuse of power. Regardless...

These Acts were not necessary. They were essentially prejudicial and discriminatory. There is no justification, but the circumstances that led to their passing were trumped up, and caused by...

Both northern whites that were against slavery and southern whites that supported slavery believed they were defending liberty. Northern whites believed that owning a person and not allowing that...

There is a very good argument to be made for the notion that the Great Depression had a greater effect on federalism than did the Civil War. The other answer posted here succinctly points out the...

The fraught issue of slavery had plagued the United States for many years. All kinds of political compromises had been tried, but none of them had done anything more than kick the can down the road...

The North and the South had different names for the Civil War. The South called the Civil War the Second War for Independence. Northerners referred to the Civil War as the War of the Rebellion....

When South Carolina became the first state to secede from the Union, they were breaking all ties to the United States and forming their own government. They did not secede until after the 1860...

The South knew it was at a numerical disadvantage, and a severe one, in terms of manpower to fight a war, as the North had more than twice the population. The South, however, knew it had a...

There were two main disadvantages for the North at the beginning of the Civil War. I will describe both of them here. First, the North had much less of a military tradition and therefore much less...

President Lincoln faced several military challenges during the Civil War. The first challenge he faced keeping Washington, D.C. in the Union. Since Virginia had seceded, he needed Maryland to...

There are many reasons why the North won the Civil War over the South. For one, the North had more heavy industry than the South, which had remained largely agricultural leading up to the war....

Lincoln wanted to keep Maryland out of the Confederacy's hands because it surrounded Washington D.C. If Maryland fell, Washington D.C. would capitulate also and the Confederacy would be able to...

In some ways we were more unite after the Civil War, but it was a long time before the country was really whole again. There were people who resented losing, and resented being part of the United...

In general, the Confederacy was technologically weaker than the Union forces. The Union possessed more than twice the length of railroad trackage that the South had, and while the northern...

Charles Sumner's views on Bleeding Kansas created conflict because they inspired Sumner to make a speech on the Senate floor in which he bitterly criticized some Southern senators. A member of the...

The constitutional and social changes that took place between 1860 and 1877 can be seen as revolutionary, though they are not often described using that term. Revolutionary change comes rapidly,...

The Civil War caused a lot of rightful bitterness on the part of the Native Americans toward the US government for a variety of reasons. Because of the land grabbing acts of the federal government,...

In the 1830s, South Carolina responded to the tariff in two ways. First, they asserted that they (and other states) had the right to nullify laws made by the national government. Second, they...

The American Civil War was one of the bloodiest conflicts in national history, with the total number of casualties estimated at around 620,000 soldiers. In this war, the northern states (also...

The Southern invasion of the North known as the Battle of Gettysburg was won by the Union, soundly defeating Pickett's Charge on the 3rd Day of Battle on July 3, 1863. This foolhardy attack was...