Portal:American Civil War

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The American Civil War Portal

The American Civil War (1861–1865) was a sectional rebellion against the United States of America by the Confederate States, formed of eleven southern states' governments which moved to secede from the Union after the 1860 election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States. The Union's victory was eventually achieved by leveraging advantages in population, manufacturing and logistics and through a strategic naval blockade denying the Confederacy access to the world's markets.

In many ways, the conflict's central issues – the enslavement of African Americans, the role of constitutional federal government, and the rights of states – are still not completely resolved. Not surprisingly, the Confederate army's surrender at Appomattox on April 9,1865 did little to change many Americans' attitudes toward the potential powers of central government. The passage of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments to the Constitution in the years immediately following the war did not change the racial prejudice prevalent among Americans of the day; and the process of Reconstruction did not heal the deeply personal wounds inflicted by four brutal years of war and more than 970,000 casualties – 3 percent of the population, including approximately 560,000 deaths. As a result, controversies affected by the war's unresolved social, political, economic and racial tensions continue to shape contemporary American thought. The causes of the war, the reasons for the outcome, and even the name of the war itself are subjects of much discussion even today. (Full article)

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Contemporary engraving of the vessel. The accuracy of the image is not known.

CSS Baltic was an ironclad warship that served in the Confederate States Navy during the American Civil War. A towboat before the war, she was purchased by the state of Alabama in December 1861 for conversion into an ironclad. After being transferred to the Confederate Navy in May 1862 as an ironclad, she served on Mobile Bay off the Gulf of Mexico. Baltic's condition in Confederate service was such that naval historian William N. Still Jr. has described her as "a nondescript vessel in many ways". Over the next two years, parts of the ship's wooden structure were affected by wood rot. Her armor was removed to be put onto the ironclad CSS Nashville in 1864. By that August, Baltic had been decommissioned. Near the end of the war, she was taken up the Tombigbee River, where she was captured by Union forces on May 10, 1865. An inspection of Baltic the next month found that her upper hull and deck were rotten and that her boilers were unsafe. She was sold on December 31, and was likely broken up in 1866. (Full article...)

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Grand Parade of the States

California's involvement in the American Civil War included sending gold east to support the war effort, recruiting volunteer combat units to replace regular U.S. Army units sent east, in the area west of the Rocky Mountains, maintaining and building numerous camps and fortifications, suppressing secessionist activity (many of these secessionists went east to fight for the Confederacy) and securing the New Mexico Territory against the Confederacy. The State of California did not send its units east, but many citizens traveled east and joined the Union Army there, some of whom became famous.

Democrats had dominated the state from its inception, and Southern Democrats were sympathetic to secession. Although they were a minority in the state, they had become a majority in Southern California and Tulare County, and large numbers resided in San Joaquin, Santa Clara, Monterey, and San Francisco counties. California was home for powerful businessmen who played a significant role in Californian politics through their control of mines, shipping, finance, and the Republican Party but Republicans had been a minority party until the secession crisis. The Civil War split in the Democratic Party allowed Abraham Lincoln to carry the state, albeit by only a slim margin. Unlike most free states, Lincoln won California with only a plurality as opposed to the outright majority in the popular vote. (Full article...)

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Benjamin, c. 1856

Judah Philip Benjamin, QC (August 6, 1811 – May 6, 1884) was an American lawyer and politician. He was a United States senator from Louisiana, a Cabinet officer of the Confederate States and, after his escape to the United Kingdom at the end of the American Civil War, an English barrister. Benjamin was the first Jew to hold a Cabinet position in North America and the first to be elected to the United States Senate who had not renounced his faith.

Benjamin was born to Sephardic Jewish parents from London, who had moved to St. Croix in the Danish West Indies when it was occupied by Britain during the Napoleonic Wars. Seeking greater opportunities, his family immigrated to the United States, eventually settling in Charleston, South Carolina. Judah Benjamin attended Yale College but left without graduating. He moved to New Orleans, where he read law and passed the bar. (Full article...)

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Image 1Battle of Fort Sanders, by Kurz and Allison
Image 2Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, by Thure de Thulstrup
Image 3The original sketch of Sherman in South Carolina: The burning of McPhersonville, at and by William Waud
Image 4Battle of Harpers Ferry, by Robert Knox Sneden
Image 5John Lorimer Worden, by Mathew Brady
Image 6John F. Reynolds, by Alfred Rudolph Waud
Image 7David Dixon Porter, by Mathew Brady
Image 8Pickett's Charge, by Thure de Thulstrup
Image 9Christian Fleetwood
Image 10Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
Image 11Richmond, Virginia after the American Civil War
Image 12Quaker guns, by George Barnard and James F. Gibson
Image 13Charles Griffin
Image 14The burning of Columbia at Columbia, South Carolina in the American Civil War, by William Waud
Image 15Andersonville Prison at Andersonville National Historic Site, by John L. Ransom
Image 16George Atzerodt, by Alexander Gardner
Image 17William Birney
Image 18Charles Pomeroy Stone
Image 19Battle of Franklin, by Kurz and Allison
Image 20Braxton Bragg
Image 21George Armstrong Custer, by George L. Andrews
Image 22Christopher Raymond Perry Rodgers
Image 23Abner Doubleday
Image 24Battle of Kennesaw Mountain, by Alfred Waud
Image 25Harriet Tubman
Image 26Lithographic facsimile of the Bixby letter, by Huber's Museum
Image 27The print version of Sherman in South Carolina: The burning of McPhersonville at McPhersonville, South Carolina, by William Waud
Image 28Military execution of the conspirators in the Abraham Lincoln assassination
Image 29Daniel McCallum, by the Brady National Photographic Art Gallery
Image 30Siege of Yorktown, by James F. Gibson
Image 31African-American Civil War soldiers
Image 32Ambrose Burnside, by Matthew Brady
Image 33The Chickahominy – Sumner's Upper Bridge at Peninsula campaign, by William McIlvaine
Image 34Andersonville survivor
Image 35Francis B. Spinola, Brigadier General for the Union in the American Civil War, and Congressman from New York
Image 36Abraham Lincoln's private secretary and biographer John Hay
Image 37United States President (and former Brigadier-General) Benjamin Harrison
Image 38Ulysses S. Grant, by Thure de Thulstrup
Image 39William H. Seward, United States Secretary of State during the American Civil War
Image 40John A. Dahlgren, by Mathew Brady
Image 41Allan Pinkerton, President Lincoln, and John A. McClernand in 1862 by Alexander Gardner
Image 42Confederate casualties at Chancellorsville during the American Civil War, by the National Archives and Records Administration
Image 43Atlanta roundhouse ruin at History of Atlanta, by George Barnard
Image 44President Rutherford B. Hayes was the 19th President of the USA
Image 45Robert E. Lee, by Levin Corbin Handy
Image 46First Battle of Bull Run map

Did you know...

... that Justus H. Rathbone, founder of the Knights of Pythias, served as a hospital steward during the American Civil War?
... that singer Frank Croxton performed a duet with his father for the unveiling of a monument to a Confederate States Army general?
... that The Land We Love, a little magazine that merged into Southern Magazine, printed American Civil War recollections, poetry, agricultural material, and many works by female authors?
... that the only functioning secondary school in Mississippi during the American Civil War was founded by Thomas S. Gathright?
... that some Confederate bullets were sourced from a silver mine?
... that Romeo and Juliet both served in the Union Navy?