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The American Civil War Portal

Reenactor discharging his musket

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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Educating the Disfranchised and Disinherited is a 1999 biography of American General Samuel Chapman Armstrong and his associated normal school for freedmen, Hampton Institute, written by Robert Francis Engs and published by the University of Tennessee Press. The first full biography of its kind, the book portrays Armstrong as a complex politician and administrator in the postbellum period who balanced the needs of opposed parties surrounding the Virginia school: its African American students, Southern white neighbors, and Northern philanthropist funders. Previous works presented Armstrong in a polarized fashion, as either a savior or handicap for freedmen. The book emphasizes Armstrong's upbringing as a missionary in Hawaii in the development of his educational philosophy.

Reviewers complimented the book's balanced presentation of Armstrong, grounded use of the period's thought, and contribution to the historiography of industrial education. They felt the book lacked community and state historical context, as well as recent scholarship on Native Americans at Hampton. (Full article...)

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Grand Parade of the States

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Featured biography

Portrait c. 1870–1880

Rutherford Birchard Hayes (/ˈrʌðərfərd/; October 4, 1822 – January 17, 1893) was an American military officer and politician who served as the 19th president of the United States from 1877 to 1881.

As an attorney in Ohio, Hayes served as Cincinnati's city solicitor from 1858 to 1861. He was a staunch abolitionist who defended refugee slaves in court proceedings. At the start of the American Civil War, he left a fledgling political career to join the Union Army as an officer. Hayes was wounded five times, most seriously at the Battle of South Mountain in 1862. He earned a reputation for bravery in combat, rising in the ranks to serve as brevet major general. After the war, he earned a reputation in the Republican Party as a prominent member of the "Half-Breed" faction. He served in Congress from 1865 to 1867 and was elected governor of Ohio, serving two consecutive terms from 1868 to 1872 and half of a third two-year term from 1876 to 1877 before his swearing-in as president. (Full article...)

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

Did you know...

... that at the Battle of La Haye-du-Puits in July 1944, a Confederate flag dating to the American Civil War was raised over the town?
... 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 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 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 some historians believe that Steele's Greenville expedition marked a shift in the Union's war policy?