Portal:American Civil War

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The American Civil War Portal

Soldiers guard the Potomac across from Georgetown University

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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Cannons on the site of Fort Stedman where the 29th saw heavy combat on March 25, 1865.

The 29th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry was an infantry regiment in the Union army of the United States during the American Civil War. The regiment was organized in December 1861 when three new companies were attached to a battalion of seven Massachusetts companies that had been in active service since May 1861.^[1] These seven companies had been recruited to fill out the 3rd Massachusetts and 4th Massachusetts regiments and had signed on for three years of service. When the 3rd and 4th Massachusetts were mustered out in July 1861, the seven companies that had signed on for three years were grouped together to form a battalion known as the Massachusetts Battalion. Finally, in December 1861, three more companies were added to their roster to form a full regiment and the unit was designated the 29th Massachusetts.

The regiment took part in 29 battles and four sieges in a variety of theaters of the war. After their early service at Fortress Monroe in Virginia, the 29th was attached, in the spring of 1862, to the Army of the Potomac during the Peninsular Campaign as part of the famed Irish Brigade. The 29th had the distinction of being the only regiment of non-Irish ethnicity to serve in that brigade. In January 1863, the IX Corps (including the 29th Massachusetts) was transferred to Kentucky and engaged in operations against Confederate guerillas. In the summer of 1863, the IX Corps was again transferred and took part in the siege of Vicksburg and the siege of Jackson, Mississippi. In the fall of 1863, IX Corps took part in the Knoxville Campaign which resulted in the defeat of Confederate forces in eastern Tennessee. The spring of 1864 saw the IX Corps and the 29th Massachusetts once again returned to duty with the Army of the Potomac, just in time to take part in the Overland campaign and the siege of Petersburg. During the siege of Petersburg, the unit suffered their worst casualties of the war in the Battle of Fort Stedman on March 25, 1865. (Full article...)

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Grand Parade of the States

During the American Civil War, most of what is now the U.S. state of Oklahoma was designated as the Indian Territory. It served as an unorganized region that had been set aside specifically for Native American tribes and was occupied mostly by tribes which had been removed from their ancestral lands in the Southeastern United States following the Indian Removal Act of 1830. As part of the Trans-Mississippi Theater, the Indian Territory was the scene of numerous skirmishes and seven officially recognized battles involving both Native American units allied with the Confederate States of America and Native Americans loyal to the United States government, as well as other Union and Confederate troops.

Most tribal leaders in Indian Territory aligned with the Confederacy. A total of at least 7,860 Native Americans from the Indian Territory participated in the Confederate Army, as both officers and enlisted men; most came from the Five Civilized Tribes: the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole nations. The Union organized several regiments of the Indian Home Guard to serve in the Indian Territory and occasionally in adjacent areas of Kansas, Missouri, and Arkansas. (Full article...)

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Photograph by Mathew Brady, c. 1859

Jefferson F. Davis (June 3, 1808 – December 6, 1889) was an American politician who served as the first and only president of the Confederate States from 1861 to 1865. He represented Mississippi in the United States Senate and the House of Representatives as a member of the Democratic Party before the American Civil War. He was the United States Secretary of War from 1853 to 1857.

Davis, the youngest of ten children, was born in Fairview, Kentucky, but spent most of his childhood in Wilkinson County, Mississippi. His eldest brother Joseph Emory Davis secured the younger Davis's appointment to the United States Military Academy. Upon graduating, he served six years as a lieutenant in the United States Army. After leaving the army in 1835, Davis married Sarah Knox Taylor, daughter of general and future President Zachary Taylor. Sarah died from malaria three months after the wedding. Davis became a cotton planter, building Brierfield Plantation in Mississippi on his brother Joseph's land and eventually owning as many as 113 slaves. (Full article...)

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

Did you know...

... 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 singer Frank Croxton performed a duet with his father for the unveiling of a monument to a Confederate States Army general?
... 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 the only functioning secondary school in Mississippi during the American Civil War was founded by Thomas S. Gathright?
... that Dubuque, Arkansas, was destroyed in the American Civil War and is now covered by the waters of Bull Shoals Lake?
... that Benjamin Jackson was likely paid at least $300 to fight in the American Civil War as Lewis Saunders?