Portal:American Civil War: Difference between revisions

Browse history interactively

← Previous edit

Content deleted Content added

VisualWikitext

Inline

Latest revision as of 06:23, 24 September 2024

Portal topics: Activities; Culture; Geography; Health; History; Mathematics; Nature; People; Philosophy; Religion; Society; Technology; Random portal

The American Civil War Portal

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)

Refresh with new selections below (purge)

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...)

More featured articles

Grand Parade of the States

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...)

More states articles

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...)

More featured biographies

WikiProjects

edit

Featured picture

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