Portal:American Civil War

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The American Civil War Portal

This drawing depicts John Wilkes Booth shooting Abraham Lincoln

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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Historic American Buildings Survey photograph of the Wirgman Building in 1937.

The Wirgman Building was an early 19th-century Federal-style commercial and residential building located on East Main Street (U.S. Route 50) in Romney, West Virginia. It was completed around 1825 to serve as the Romney branch office of the Bank of the Valley of Virginia, and served as a location for every subsequent bank established in Romney, including the Bank of Romney and the First National Bank of Romney. During the American Civil War, the building was used as a military prison. For a time, its second floor housed the offices and printing plant of the Hampshire Review newspaper, and by 1947 its ground floor housed office and mercantile space, and the second floor was divided into apartments.

In 1964 the Wirgman Building sustained damage in a fire; it was demolished the following year to make way for the new Bank of Romney headquarters building, which opened in 1966. Prior to its demolition, in 1937, the Wirgman Building was photographed and documented by the National Park Service's Historic American Buildings Survey. (Full article...)

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Grand Parade of the States

With the outbreak of the American Civil War, the northwestern state of Wisconsin raised 91,379 soldiers for the Union Army, organized into 53 infantry regiments, 4 cavalry regiments, a company of Berdan's sharpshooters, 13 light artillery batteries and 1 unit of heavy artillery. Most of the Wisconsin troops served in the Western Theater, although several regiments served in Eastern armies, including three regiments within the famed Iron Brigade. 3,794 were killed in action or mortally wounded, 8,022 died of disease, and 400 were killed in accidents. The total mortality was 12,216 men, about 13.4 percent of total enlistments. (Full article...)

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Tubman in 1895

Harriet Tubman (born Araminta Ross, c. March 1822 – March 10, 1913) was an American abolitionist and social activist. After escaping slavery, Tubman made some 13 missions to rescue approximately 70 enslaved people, including her family and friends, using the network of antislavery activists and safe houses known collectively as the Underground Railroad. During the American Civil War, she served as an armed scout and spy for the Union Army. In her later years, Tubman was an activist in the movement for women's suffrage.

Born into slavery in Dorchester County, Maryland, Tubman was beaten and whipped by enslavers as a child. Early in life, she suffered a traumatic head wound when an irate overseer threw a heavy metal weight, intending to hit another slave, but hit her instead. The injury caused dizziness, pain, and spells of hypersomnia, which occurred throughout her life. After her injury, Tubman began experiencing strange visions and vivid dreams, which she ascribed to premonitions from God. These experiences, combined with her Methodist upbringing, led her to become devoutly religious. (Full article...)

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

Did you know...

... that Francis Orray Ticknor was a country doctor whose fame as a poet relies on "Little Giffen", a poem about one of his patients who died in the American Civil War?
... 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 the Confederate States Navy ordered six Squib-class torpedo boats from England, but they were never delivered?
... that after the Little Rock campaign, Union forces held three-quarters of Arkansas?
... 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 some historians believe that Steele's Greenville expedition marked a shift in the Union's war policy?