Untold Facts about American Civil War

Less than 80 years after independence, the USA split in two over the issue of slavery. The richer, industrial northern states had banned slavery, but slaves were used on plantations in the south. When Abraham Lincoln became president in 1860, the southern states, fearing he would ban slavery, seceded from the Union, and established the Confederate States of America. Fighting began in 1861 and lasted for four years. At first the sides were evenly matched, but the strength of the Union wore down the Confederacy, and it surrendered,. Slavery was then abolished throughout the country.

The American Civil War was the first recognizably modern war. Railways transported men and supplies to the battlefield, and iron ships were used for the first time. Commanders talked to each other by field telegraph, and the war was photographed and widely reported in newspapers. Eleven southern slave states left the Union of states, declaring independence as the Confederacy. Four other slave states refused to break away. West Virginia split from the rest of the state and stayed in the Union. More than three million people fought in the two opposing armies, most of them as infantrymen (foot soldiers).

Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln was born in Kentucky in 1809. He was elected to the state legislature in 1834, was elected president in 1860 and led the Union states to victory in the civil war. He was assassinated in 1865.

Gettysburg Address

Lincoln’s fine speeches helped win the war. In 1863, he declared a cemetery on the site of a battleship in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. In his speech, he hoped that “These dead shall have not died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth”.

Appomattox

On 9 April 1865, at Appomattox, Virginia, the Confederate general Robert E. Lee surrendered to union general Ulysses S. Grant. More than 600,000 Americans died in the four years of fighting, and many more were injured.

Merrimack and Monitor

The Confederate ironclad ship Merrimack (renamed Virginia) fought the Union’s vessel Monitor on 9 March 1862. The battle was inconclusive, but marked the first occasion on which iron ships had been used in naval warfare.