Portal:American Civil War

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Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery

Graves of soldiers at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery

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

Drawing of Monitor at sea

USS Monitor was an ironclad warship built for the United States Navy during the American Civil War and completed in early 1862, the first such ship commissioned by the Navy. Monitor played a central role in the Battle of Hampton Roads on 9 March under the command of Lieutenant John L. Worden, where she fought the casemate ironclad CSS Virginia (built on the hull of the scuttled steam frigate USS Merrimack) to a stalemate. The design of the ship was distinguished by its revolving turret, which was designed by American inventor Theodore Timby; it was quickly duplicated and established the monitor class and type of armored warship built for the American Navy over the next several decades.

The remainder of the ship was designed by Swedish-born engineer and inventor John Ericsson, and built in only 101 days in Brooklyn, New York, on the East River beginning in late 1861. Monitor presented a new concept in ship design and employed a variety of new inventions and innovations in ship building that caught the attention of the world. The impetus to build Monitor was prompted by the news that the Confederates had raised the scuttled Merrimack and were building an iron-plated armored vessel named the Virginia on her hull in the old Federal naval shipyard at Gosport, near Norfolk, that could effectively engage the Union ships blockading Hampton Roads harbor and the James River leading northwest to Richmond (capital of the Confederacy). They could ultimately advance unchallenged on Washington, D.C., up the Potomac River and other seacoast cities. Before Monitor could reach Hampton Roads, the Confederate ironclad had already destroyed the sail frigates USS Cumberland and USS Congress and had run the steam frigate USS Minnesota aground. That night, Monitor arrived and, just as Virginia set to finish off Minnesota and St. Lawrence on the second day, the new Union ironclad confronted the Confederate ship, preventing her from wreaking further destruction on the wooden Union ships. A four-hour battle ensued, each ship pounding the other with close-range cannon fire, although neither ship could destroy or seriously damage the other. This was the first battle fought between armored warships and marked a turning point in naval warfare. (Full article...)

   Grand Parade of the States

Civil War-era military outposts in the Pacific Northwest

At the outbreak of the American Civil War, Oregon had no organised militia and had sold most of the equipment bought for the Rogue River Wars. The state's governor, John Whiteaker, was pro-slavery and opposed to Oregon's involvement in the conflict. As such, it was only in late 1862 with a new governor that the state raised any troops: the 1st Oregon Cavalry served until June 1865.

During the Civil War, emigrants to the newfound gold fields in Idaho and Oregon continued to clash with the Paiute, Shoshone and Bannock tribes of Oregon, Idaho and Nevada until relations degenerated into the bloody 1864–1868 Snake War. The 1st Oregon Volunteer Infantry Regiment was formed in 1864 and its last company was mustered out of service in July 1867. Both units were used to guard travel routes and Indian reservations, escort emigrant wagon trains, and protect settlers from Indian raiders. Several infantry detachments also accompanied survey parties and built roads in central and southern Oregon. (Full article...)

   Featured biography

William Franklin Raynolds (March 17, 1820 – October 18, 1894) was an American explorer, engineer and U.S. army officer who served in the Mexican–American War and American Civil War. He is best known for leading the 1859–60 Raynolds Expedition while serving as a member of the U.S. Army Corps of Topographical Engineers.

During the 1850s and again after his participation in the Civil War, Raynolds was the head engineer on numerous lighthouse construction projects. He oversaw riverway and harbor dredging projects intended to improve accessibility and navigation for shipping. As a cartographer, Raynolds surveyed and mapped the islands and shorelines on the Great Lakes and other regions. At least six lighthouses whose construction he oversaw are still standing. Some are still in use and of these, several are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. (Full article...)

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   Featured picture

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

   Did you know...

• ... that Chinese-born Joseph Pierce enlisted as a Union Army soldier, fought at the Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War, and was made a corporal?
• ... that some historians believe that Steele's Greenville expedition marked a shift in the Union's war policy?
• ... that Colonel Bradley Winslow was brevetted by US president Abraham Lincoln for "brave and gallant conduct" during the siege of Petersburg in the American Civil War?
• ... that CSS Beaufort fought USS Albatross in the first ship-versus-ship action of the American Civil War?
• ... that after the Little Rock campaign, Union forces held three-quarters of Arkansas?
• ... that the only functioning secondary school in Mississippi during the American Civil War was founded by Thomas S. Gathright?

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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

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Secession crisis of 1860–61

Social history of the American Civil War

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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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