American Civil War

American Civil War

Clockwise from top:
DateApril 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865[a][1][2]
(4 years, 1 month and 2 weeks)
Location
Result

Union victory

Territorial
changes
Dissolution of the Confederate States of America
Belligerents
United States United States  Confederate States
Commanders and leaders
United States Abraham Lincoln X
United States Ulysses S. Grant
and others...
Confederate States of America Jefferson Davis Surrendered
Confederate States of America Robert E. Lee Surrendered
and others...
Strength
2,200,000[b]
698,000 (peak)[3][4]
750,000–1,000,000[b][5]
360,000 (peak)[3][6]
Casualties and losses
  • 110,000+  / (DOW)
  • 230,000+ accident/disease deaths[7][8]
  • 25,000–30,000 died in Confederate prisons[3][7]

365,000+ total dead[9]

Total: 828,000+ casualties
  • 94,000+  / (DOW)[7]
  • 26,000–31,000 died in Union prisons[8]

290,000+ total dead

  • 137,000+ wounded
  • 436,658 captured[11][d]
Total: 864,000+ casualties
  • 50,000 free civilians dead[12]
  • 80,000+ slaves dead (disease)[13]
  • Total: 616,222[14]–1,000,000+ dead[15][16]

The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union[e] ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), which had been formed by states that had seceded from the Union. The central cause of the war was the dispute over whether slavery would be permitted to expand into the western territories, leading to more slave states, or be prevented from doing so, which many believed would place slavery on a course of ultimate extinction.[17]

Decades of political controversy over slavery were brought to a head by the victory in the 1860 U.S. presidential election of Abraham Lincoln, who opposed slavery's expansion into the western territories. Seven southern slave states responded to Lincoln's victory by seceding from the United States and forming the Confederacy. The Confederacy seized U.S. forts and other federal assets within their borders. The war began when on April 12, 1861, Confederate troops fired on Fort Sumter in South Carolina's Charleston Harbor. A wave of enthusiasm for war swept over both North and South, as recruitment soared. The states in the undecided border region had to choose sides, although Kentucky declared it was neutral. Four more southern states seceded after the war began and, led by Confederate President Jefferson Davis, the Confederacy asserted control over about a third of the U.S. population in eleven states. Four years of intense combat, mostly in the South, ensued.

During 1861–1862 in the Western Theater, the Union made significant permanent gains—though in the Eastern Theater the conflict was inconclusive. The abolition of slavery became a Union war goal on January 1, 1863, when Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared all slaves in rebel states to be free, which applied to more than 3.5 million of the 4 million enslaved people in the country. To the west, the Union first destroyed the Confederacy's river navy by the summer of 1862, then much of its western armies, and seized New Orleans. The successful 1863 Union siege of Vicksburg split the Confederacy in two at the Mississippi River, while Confederate General Robert E. Lee's incursion north failed at the Battle of Gettysburg. Western successes led to General Ulysses S. Grant's command of all Union armies in 1864. Inflicting an ever-tightening naval blockade of Confederate ports, the Union marshaled resources and manpower to attack the Confederacy from all directions. This led to the fall of Atlanta in 1864 to Union General William Tecumseh Sherman, followed by his March to the Sea. The last significant battles raged around the ten-month Siege of Petersburg, gateway to the Confederate capital of Richmond. The Confederates abandoned Richmond, and on April 9, 1865, Lee surrendered to Grant following the Battle of Appomattox Court House, setting in motion the end of the war. Lincoln lived to see this victory but on April 14, he was assassinated.

Appomattox is often referred to symbolically as the end of the war, although arguably there are several different dates for the war's conclusion. Lee's surrender to Grant set off a wave of Confederate surrenders—the last military department of the Confederacy, the Department of the Trans-Mississippi disbanded on May 26. By the end of the war, much of the South's infrastructure was destroyed. The Confederacy collapsed, slavery was abolished, and four million enslaved black people were freed. The war-torn nation then entered the Reconstruction era in an attempt to rebuild the country, bring the former Confederate states back into the United States, and grant civil rights to freed slaves.

The Civil War is one of the most extensively studied and written about episodes in U.S. history. It remains the subject of cultural and historiographical debate. Of particular interest is the persisting myth of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy. The American Civil War was among the first wars to use industrial warfare. Railroads, the telegraph, steamships, the ironclad warship, and mass-produced weapons were all widely used during the war. In total, the war left between 620,000 and 750,000 soldiers dead, along with an undetermined number of civilian casualties, making the Civil War the deadliest military conflict in American history.[f] The technology and brutality of the Civil War foreshadowed the coming World Wars.


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  1. ^ Blair, William A. (2015). "Finding the Ending of America's Civil War". The American Historical Review. 120 (5). Oxford University Press: 1753–1766. doi:10.1093/ahr/120.5.1753. JSTOR 43697075. Retrieved July 29, 2022. Pennsylvania State University Professor William A. Blair wrote at pages 313–14: "the sheer weight of scholarship has leaned toward portraying the surrenders of the Confederate armies as the end of the war."; The New York Times: "End of the Rebellion; The Last Rebel Army Disbands. Kirby Smith Surrenders the Land and Naval Forces Under His Command. The Confederate Flag Disappears from the Continent. The Era of Peace Begins. Military Prisoners During the War to be Discharged. Deserters to be Released from Confinement. [Official.] From Secretary Stanton to Gen. Dix". The New York Times. United States Department of War. May 29, 1865. Retrieved July 29, 2022.; United States Civil War Centennial Commission Robertson, James I. Jr. (1963). The Civil War. Washington, D.C.: Civil War Centennial Commission. OCLC 299955768. At p. 31, Professor James I. Robertson Jr. of Virginia Tech University and Executive Director of the U. S. Civil War Centennial Commission wrote, "Lee's surrender left Johnston with no place to go. On April 26, near Durham, N. C., the Army of Tennessee laid down its arms before Sherman's forces. With the surrender of isolated forces in the Trans-Mississippi West on May 4, 11, and 26, the most costly war in American history came to an end."
  2. ^ Among the many other contemporary sources and later historians citing May 26, 1865, the date that the surrender of the last significant Confederate force in the trans-Mississippi department was agreed upon, or citing simply the surrender of the Confederate armies, as the end date for the American Civil War hostilities are George Templeton Strong, who was a prominent New York lawyer; a founder, treasurer, and member of the Executive Committee of United States Sanitary Commission throughout the war; and a diarist. A diary excerpt is published in Gienapp, William E., ed. The Civil War and Reconstruction: A Documentary Collection. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2001, pp. 313–314 ISBN 978-0-393-97555-0. A footnote in Gienapp shows the excerpt was taken from an edited version of the diaries by Allan Nevins and Milton Halsey Thomas, eds., The Diary of George Templeton Strong, vol. 2 (New York: The McMillan Company), pp. 600–601, which differs from the volume and page numbers of the original diaries; the actual diary is shown at https://digitalcollections.nyhistory.org/islandora/object/nyhs%3A55249 Archived November 16, 2022, at the Wayback Machine, the page in Strong's original handwriting is shown at that web page, it is Volume 4, pp. 124–125: diary entries for May 23 (continued)-June 7, 1865 of the original diaries; Horace Greeley, The American Conflict: A History of the Great Rebellion in the United States, 1860–'65. Volume II. Hartford: O. D. Case & Company, 1866. OCLC 936872302. p. 757: "Though the war on land ceased, and the Confederate flag utterly disappeared from this continent with the collapse and dispersion of Kirby Smith's command...."; John William Draper, History of the American Civil War. [1] Volume 3. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1870. OCLC 830251756. Retrievfootnoed July 28, 2022. p. 618: "On the 26th of the same month General Kirby Smith surrendered his entire command west of the Mississippi to General Canby. With this, all military opposition to the government ended."; Jefferson Davis. The Rise And Fall Of The Confederate Government. Volume II. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1881. OCLC 1249017603. p. 630: "With General E. K. Smith's surrender the Confederate flag no longer floated on the land; p. 663: "When the Confederate soldiers laid down their arms and went home, all hostilities against the power of the Government of the United States ceased."; Ulysses S. Grant Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant. Volume 2. [2] New York: Charles L. Webster & Company, 1886. OCLC 255136538. p. 522: "General E. Kirby Smith surrendered the trans-Mississippi department on the 26th of May, leaving no other Confederate army at liberty to continue the war."; Frederick H. Dyer A compendium of the War of the Rebellion. [3] Des Moines, IA: Dyer Publishing Co., 1908. OCLC 8697590. Full entry on last Table of Contents page (unnumbered on download): "Alphabetical Index of Campaigns, Battles, Engagements, Actions, Combats, Sieges, Skirmishes, Reconnaissances, Scouts and Other Military Events Connected with the "War of the Rebellion" During the Period of Actual Hostilities, From April 12, 1861, to May 26, 1865"; Nathaniel W. Stephenson, The Day of the Confederacy, A Chronicle of the Embattled South, Volume 30 in The Chronicles Of America Series. [4] New Haven: Yale University Press; Toronto: Glasgow, Brook & Co.; London: Oxford University Press, 1919. p. 202: "The surrender of the forces of the Trans-Mississippi on May 26, 1865, brought the war to a definite conclusion."; Bruce Catton. The Centennial History of the Civil War. Vol. 3, Never Call Retreat. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1965. p. 445. "and on May 26 he [E. Kirby Smith] surrendered and the war was over"; and Gary W. Gallagher, Stephen D. Engle, Robert K. Krick & Joseph T. Glatthaar, foreword by James M. McPherson. The American Civil War: This Mighty Scourge of War. New York: Osprey Publishing, Ltd., 2003 ISBN 978-1-84176-736-9. p. 308: "By 26 May, General Edward Kirby Smith had surrendered the Rebel forces in the trans-Mississippi west. The war was over."
  3. ^ a b c "Facts". National Park Service.
  4. ^ "Size of the Union Army in the American Civil War" Archived April 16, 2017, at the Wayback Machine: Of which 131,000 were in the Navy and Marines, 140,000 were garrison troops and home defense militia, and 427,000 were in the field army.
  5. ^ Long 1971, p. 705.
  6. ^ "The war of the rebellion: a compilation of the official records of the Union and Confederate armies; Series 4 – Volume 2" Archived July 25, 2017, at the Wayback Machine, United States War Dept., 1900.
  7. ^ a b c Fox, William F. Regimental losses in the American Civil War Archived May 25, 2017, at the Wayback Machine (1889).
  8. ^ a b c "DCAS Reports – Principal Wars, 1775–1991". dcas.dmdc.osd.mil.
  9. ^ Chambers & Anderson 1999, p. 849.
  10. ^ Rhodes, James Ford (1893). History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850. Harvard University. New York, Harper & Bros. pp. 507–508.
  11. ^ Rhodes, James Ford (1893). History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850. Harvard University. New York, Harper & Bros. pp. 507–508.
  12. ^ Cite error: The named reference StatsWarCost was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  13. ^ James Downs, "Colorblindness in the demographic death toll of the Civil War" Archived January 19, 2018, at the Wayback Machine. Oxford University Press blog, April 13, 2012. "The rough 19th century estimate was that 60,000 former slaves died from the epidemic, but doctors treating black patients often claimed that they were unable to keep accurate records due to demands on their time and the lack of manpower and resources. The surviving records only include the number of black patients whom doctors encountered; tens of thousands of other slaves had no contact with army doctors, leaving no records of their deaths." 60,000 documented plus 'tens of thousands' undocumented gives a minimum of 80,000 slave deaths.
  14. ^ Toward a Social History of the American Civil War Exploratory Essays, Cambridge University Press, 1990, p. 4.
  15. ^ Cite error: The named reference recounting was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  16. ^ James Downs, "Colorblindness in the demographic death toll of the Civil War" Archived January 19, 2018, at the Wayback Machine. Oxford University Press blog, April 13, 2012. "An 2 April 2012 New York Times article, 'New Estimate Raises Civil War Death Toll', reports that a new study ratchets up the death toll from an estimated 650,000 to a staggering 850,000 people. As horrific as this new number is, it fails to reflect the mortality of former slaves during the war. If former slaves were included in this figure, the Civil War death toll would likely be over a million casualties ...".
  17. ^ "The Declaration of Causes of Seceding States. Primary Sources". American Battlefield Trust. 2023. Retrieved December 30, 2023.