Portal:American Civil War

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The American Civil War Portal

Washington D.C.'s chain bridge across the Potomac River

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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A drawing of Galena cleared for action in 1862

USS Galena was a wooden-hulled broadside ironclad built for the United States Navy during the American Civil War. The ship was initially assigned to the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron and supported Union forces during the Peninsula Campaign in 1862. She was damaged during the Battle of Drewry's Bluff because her armor was too thin to prevent Confederate shots from the guns of Fort Darling from penetrating her hull. Widely regarded as a failure, Galena was reconstructed without most of her armor in 1863 and transferred to the West Gulf Blockading Squadron in 1864. The ship participated in the Battle of Mobile Bay and the subsequent Siege of Fort Morgan in August. She was briefly transferred to the East Gulf Blockading Squadron in September before she was sent to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania for repairs in November.

Repairs were completed in March 1865 and Galena rejoined the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron in Hampton Roads the following month. After the end of the war, the ship was decommissioned at Portsmouth, New Hampshire in June. She was transferred to Hampton Roads in 1869, condemned in 1870, and broken up for scrap in 1872. (Full article...)

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Grand Parade of the States

The present-day state of Nebraska was still a territory of the United States during the American Civil War. It did not achieve statehood until March 1867, two years after the war ended. Nevertheless, the Nebraska Territory contributed significantly to the Union war effort. (Full article...)

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J. R. Kealoha (died March 5, 1877) was a Native Hawaiian and a citizen of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi, who became a Union Army soldier during the American Civil War. Considered one of the "Hawaiʻi sons of the Civil War", he was among a group of more than one hundred documented Native Hawaiian and Hawaiʻi-born combatants who fought in the American Civil War while the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi was an independent nation.

Kealoha enlisted in the 41st United States Colored Infantry, a United States Colored Troops regiment formed in Pennsylvania. Participating in the siege of Petersburg, he and another Hawaiian soldier met the Hawaiʻi-born Colonel Samuel Chapman Armstrong, who recorded their encounter in a letter home. With the 41st USCT, Kealoha was present at the surrender of Confederate General Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. After the war, Kealoha returned to Hawaiʻi. He died on March 5, 1877, and was buried in an unmarked grave in Honolulu's Oʻahu Cemetery. (Full article...)

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

Did you know...

... 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 after the Little Rock campaign, Union forces held three-quarters of Arkansas?
... that Romeo and Juliet both served in the Union Navy?
... that some Confederate bullets were sourced from a silver mine?
... 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 according to one historian, James S. Rains made a "significant contribution to the Confederate war effort" by getting drunk?