Portal:American Civil War

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The American Civil War Portal

African-American soldiers near Dutch Gap, Virginia

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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Milwaukee with a mine rake attached to her bow

The first USS Milwaukee, a double-turreted Milwaukee-class river monitor, the lead ship of her class, built for the Union Navy during the American Civil War. The ship supported Union forces during the Mobile Campaign as they attacked Confederate fortifications defending the city of Mobile, Alabama in early 1865. She struck a mine in March and sank without loss. Her wreck was raised in 1868 and broken up for scrap that was used in the construction of a bridge in St. Louis, Missouri. (Full article...)

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Grand Parade of the States

During the American Civil War, the State of Ohio played a key role in providing troops, military officers, and supplies to the Union army. Due to its central location in the Northern United States and burgeoning population, Ohio was both politically and logistically important to the war effort. Despite the state's boasting a number of very powerful Republican politicians, it was divided politically. Portions of Southern Ohio followed the Peace Democrats and openly opposed President Abraham Lincoln's policies. Ohio played an important part in the Underground Railroad prior to the war, and remained a haven for escaped and runaway slaves during the war years.

The third most populous state in the Union at the time, Ohio raised nearly 320,000 soldiers for the Union army, third behind only New York and Pennsylvania in total manpower contributed to the military and the highest per capita of any Union state. Several leading generals were from Ohio, including Ulysses S. Grant, William T. Sherman, and Philip H. Sheridan. Five Ohio-born Civil War officers would later serve as the President of the United States. The Fighting McCooks gained fame as the largest immediate family group ever to become officers in the U.S. Army. (Full article...)

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Portrait of Henry Hoʻolulu Pitman at the Peabody Essex Museum

Timothy Henry Hoʻolulu Pitman (March 18, 1845 – February 27, 1863) was an American Union Army soldier of Native Hawaiian descent. Considered one of the "Hawaiʻi Sons of the Civil War", he was among a group of more than one hundred documented Native Hawaiian and Hawaii-born combatants who fought in the American Civil War while the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi was still an independent nation.

Born and raised in Hilo, Hawaiʻi, he was the eldest son of Kinoʻoleoliliha, a Hawaiian high chiefess, and Benjamin Pitman, an American pioneer settler from Massachusetts. Through his father's business success in the whaling and sugar and coffee plantation industries and his mother's familial connections to the Hawaiian royal family, the Pitmans were quite prosperous and owned lands on the island of Hawaiʻi and in Honolulu. He and his older sister Mary were educated in the mission schools in Hilo alongside other children of mixed Hawaiian descent. After the death of his mother in 1855, his father remarried to the widow of a missionary, thus connecting the family to the American missionary community in Hawaiʻi. However, following the deaths of his first wife and later his second wife, his father decided to leave the islands and returned to Massachusetts with his family in 1861. The younger Pitman continued his education in the public schools around Boston. (Full article...)

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

Did you know...

... that according to one historian, James S. Rains made a "significant contribution to the Confederate war effort" by getting drunk?
... 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 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 Dubuque, Arkansas, was destroyed in the American Civil War and is now covered by the waters of Bull Shoals Lake?
... that singer Frank Croxton performed a duet with his father for the unveiling of a monument to a Confederate States Army general?
... that CSS Beaufort fought USS Albatross in the first ship-versus-ship action of the American Civil War?