Secession and Civil War

Southern states that seceded immediately after Lincoln's election in 1860 did so because they had already been planning it in the event of a Republican victory. Their motivation involved what they...

The North had international legitimacy. Other nations recognized the North and could provide trade and credit. The Confederacy, on the other hand, never received international recognition. While...

The Civil War lasted from 1861-1865. Many people thought it would be a shorter conflict. One reason why the Civil War lasted four years is that the South had better military generals than the North...

The South was very displeased with the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States in 1860. They were convinced Lincoln was going to end slavery. The South came to this conclusion...

The election of Abraham Lincoln as president, without one vote in favor from a southern state, was the key event in a long series of events that ultimately led to war. However, it was not until his...

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...

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...

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,...

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...

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...

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 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...

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...

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...

It would be more nearly correct to state that the military leaders of the South were far superior to those of the North. General Winfield Scott had offered command of Union forces to Robert E. Lee,...

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...

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...

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...

Short-term causes of the American Civil War certainly include Lincoln's refusal to meet with the commissioners that were sent by the Confederate government to buy Fort Sumter and other federal...

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...

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...

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...

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...

The election of 1860 was one of the major causes of the Civil War; however, it was not the main cause. The Democratic Party split in the 1860 election between Stephen Douglas and John Breckenridge....

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...

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...

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...

Viewing the American Civil War as the Second American Revolution began during the Progressive Era in the early 20th Century. At this time, American history was being looked at in a new light, often...

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 reasons for joining either the Union or Confederate Army were complex and often personal. Union soldiers, for the most part, did not join the army with the expectation that they were fighting...

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 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...

First of all, we must remember that not everyone (particularly in the North) reacted to John Brown’s raid in the same way. That said, we can make some comparisons. In the South, the reaction to...

The United States Congress, in the years leading up to the Civil War, was a virtual battleground in which Democratic Southerners and mainly Republican Northerners would bully each other as often as...

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 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...

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,...

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...

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...

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...

There are quite a few major differences between the North and the South at the beginning of the Civil War. These differences were economic, political, and geographic in nature and were major...

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....

The Civil War (1861–1865) was much lengthier and bloodier than most people had expected. Both the North and the South expected a quick victory. The first big battles—at Bull Run (1861) and Shiloh...

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...

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...

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...

There are two major reasons for this. After 1857, compromise was no longer possible because the Supreme Court had forbidden it. The ruling in the Dred Scottcase had said that Congress had no right...

The Civil War (1861–1865) was fought over the issue of slavery. But Abraham Lincoln was cautious about publicizing his strong opposition to slavery. One reason for Lincoln's carefulness was he...

The causes of the civil war have been a point of contention lately. First of all, its causes were economic. The North relied on the South's agriculture for its industrial wealth. When you add to...