Portal:American Civil War

   The American Civil War Portal

Battle of Fredricksburg

Union troops build pontoon bridges

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)

   Featured article

Colross in 2015

Colross (also historically known as Belle Air and Grasshopper Hall) is a Georgian style mansion built around 1800 as the center of a large plantation in what is now the Old Town neighborhood of Alexandria, Virginia, and moved circa 1930 to Princeton, New Jersey, where it is currently the administration building of Princeton Day School.

The Colross property originally occupied the entire 1100 block of Oronoco Street; Alexandria merchant John Potts developed it as a plantation and began building the mansion in 1799–1800. In 1803, Jonathan Swift—also an Alexandria merchant and a city councilman—purchased the property and during his ownership continued constructing the mansion. After Swift died in 1824, Colross was purchased by Thomson Francis Mason (1785–1838), son of Thomson Mason (1759–1820) and grandson of Founding Father George Mason (1725–1792) of Gunston Hall. Mason served as a judge of the Criminal Court of the District of Columbia and as mayor of Alexandria. Mason, who made Colross his chief homestead, modified and enlarged the mansion. After successive ownerships, the area around Colross became heavily industrialized. The mansion was bought by John Munn in 1929; between that year and 1932, it was transported brick-by-brick to Princeton, where in 1958 it was sold to Princeton Day School, which uses it as a school administration building housing its admission and advancement offices. (Full article...)

   Grand Parade of the States

Seal of Maryland during the war

During the American Civil War (1861–1865), Maryland, a slave state, was one of the border states, straddling the South and North. Despite some popular support for the cause of the Confederate States of America, Maryland did not secede during the Civil War. Governor Thomas H. Hicks, despite his early sympathies for the South, helped prevent the state from seceding.

Because the state bordered the District of Columbia and the opposing factions within the state strongly desired to sway public opinion towards their respective causes, Maryland played an important role in the war. The Presidency of Abraham Lincoln (1861–1865) suspended the constitutional right of habeas corpus from Washington to Philadelphia. Lincoln ignored the ruling of Chief Justice Roger B. Taney in "Ex parte Merryman" decision in 1861 concerning freeing John Merryman, a prominent Southern sympathizer arrested by the military. (Full article...)

   Featured biography

1896 portrait

Benjamin Harrison (August 20, 1833 – March 13, 1901) was the 23rd president of the United States, serving from 1889 to 1893. He was a member of the Harrison family of Virginia—a grandson of the ninth president, William Henry Harrison, and a great-grandson of Benjamin Harrison V, a Founding Father. A Union Army veteran and a Republican, he defeated incumbent Grover Cleveland to win the presidency in 1888 and was defeated for a second term by Cleveland in 1892.

Harrison was born on a farm by the Ohio River and graduated from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. After moving to Indianapolis, he established himself as a prominent local attorney, Presbyterian church leader, and politician in Indiana. During the American Civil War, he served in the Union Army as a colonel, and was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as a brevet brigadier general of volunteers in 1865. Harrison unsuccessfully ran for governor of Indiana in 1876. The Indiana General Assembly elected Harrison to a six-year term in the Senate, where he served from 1881 to 1887. (Full article...)

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   Featured picture

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

   Did you know...

• ... that Benjamin Jackson was likely paid at least $300 to fight in the American Civil War as Lewis Saunders?
• ... that Carter Moore Braxton fought for the Confederacy throughout the American Civil War and, according to one report, had seven horses killed under him but avoided any wounds?
• ... that some historians believe that Steele's Greenville expedition marked a shift in the Union's war policy?
• ... that Emma Dean Powell received a pass from General Ulysses S. Grant to accompany her husband to battlefield camps during the American Civil War after he lost his arm?
• ... that in the aftermath of the American Civil War, the only Black-led organization providing teachers to formerly enslaved people was the African Civilization Society?
• ... that Charles Herman Allen, university administrator and American Civil War captain, opened the University of Wisconsin to female enrollment in 1863?

   Subcategories

American Civil War

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Aftermath of the American Civil War

Confederate States of America

Cultural history of the American Civil War

Economic history of the American Civil War

Historiography of the American Civil War

Military awards and decorations of the American Civil War

Military history of the American Civil War

Military units and formations of the American Civil War

American Civil War on the National Register of Historic Places

Origins of the American Civil War

People of the American Civil War

Politics of the American Civil War

Secession crisis of 1860–61

Social history of the American Civil War

American Civil War timelines

Union (American Civil War)

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Works about the American Civil War

American Civil War stubs

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Attention needed

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The West Tennessee Raids

Requested articles

James Ashby (soldier) • Benjamin D. Fearing • James B. Speers • Charles S. Steedman • Battle of Barton's Station • Lawrence P. Graham • Frederick S. Sturmbaugh • Davis Tillson • Action at Nineveh (currently a redirect) • International response to the American Civil War • Spain and the American Civil War • Savannah Campaign Confederate order of battle • Native Americans in the American Civil War (currently disambiguation after deletion) • Battle of Lafayette • Battle of Sunshine Church • Requested American Civil War Medal of Honor recipients

Expansion needed

Battle of Boonsborough • Battle of Guard Hill • Battle of Rice's Station • Battle of Simmon's Bluff • Battle of Summit Point • Charleston Arsenal • Edenton Bell Battery • First Battle of Dalton • Blackshear Prison • Edwin Forbes • Hiram B. Granbury • Henry Thomas Harrison • Louis Hébert (colonel) • Benjamin G. Humphreys • Maynard Carbine • Hezekiah G. Spruill • Smith carbine • Edward C. Walthall • Confederate States Secretary of the Navy • Confederate States Secretary of the Treasury • David Henry Williams • Battle of Rome Cross Roads • Delaware in the American Civil War • Ironclad Board • United States Military Railroad • Kansas in the American Civil War • Rufus Daggett • Ebenezer Magoffin • Confederate Quartermaster-General's Department • First Corps, Army of Northern Virginia • Francis Laurens Vinton • Henry Maury • Smith's Expedition to Tupelo • Other American Civil War battle stubs • Other American Civil War stubs

Images needed

Battle of Lone Jack • Preston Pond, Jr. • Melancthon Smith

Merging needed

1st Regiment New York Mounted Rifles and 7th Regiment New York Volunteer Cavalry

Citations needed

1st Alabama Cavalry Regiment (Union) • 4th Maine Battery • 33rd Ohio Infantry • 110th New York Volunteer Infantry • Battle of Hatcher's Run • Camp Dennison • Confederate colonies • CSS Resolute • Dakota War of 1862 • Florida in the American Civil War • Ethan A. Hitchcock (general) • Fort Harker (Alabama) • Gettysburg (1993 film) • Iowa in the American Civil War • Second Battle of Fort Sumter • Samuel Benton

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