Portal:American Civil War

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The American Civil War Portal

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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The Confederate government of Kentucky was a shadow government established for the Commonwealth of Kentucky by a self-constituted group of Confederate sympathizers and delegates sent by Kentucky counties, during the American Civil War. The shadow government never replaced the elected government in Frankfort, in which the state legislature had strong Union sympathies while the governor was pro-Confederate. Neither was it able to gain the whole support of Kentucky's citizens; its jurisdiction extended only as far as Confederate battle lines in the Commonwealth, which at its greatest extent in 1861 and early 1862 encompassed over half the state. Nevertheless, the provisional government was recognized by the Confederate States of America, and Kentucky was admitted to the Confederacy on December 10, 1861. Kentucky, the final state admitted to the Confederacy, was represented by the 13th (central) star on the Confederate battle flag.

Bowling Green, Kentucky, was designated the Confederate capital of Kentucky at a convention in nearby Russellville. Due to the military situation in the state, the provisional government was exiled and traveled with the Army of Tennessee for most of its existence. For a short time in the autumn of 1862, the Confederate Army controlled Frankfort, the only time a Union capital was captured by Confederate forces. During this occupation, General Braxton Bragg attempted to install the provisional government as the permanent authority in the Commonwealth. However, Union General Don Carlos Buell ambushed the inauguration ceremony and drove the provisional government from the state for the final time. From that point forward, the government existed primarily on paper and was dissolved at the end of the war. (Full article...)

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Grand Parade of the States

Arizona Territory, colloquially referred to as Confederate Arizona, was an organized incorporated territory of the Confederate States of America that existed from August 1, 1861, to May 26, 1865, when the Confederate States Army Trans-Mississippi Department, commanded by General Edmund Kirby Smith, surrendered at Shreveport, Louisiana. However, after the Battle of Glorieta Pass, the Confederates had to retreat from the territory, and by July 1862, effective Confederate control of the territory had ended. Delegates to the secession convention had voted in March 1861 to secede from the New Mexico Territory and the Union, and seek to join the Confederacy. It consisted of the portion of the New Mexico Territory south of the 34th parallel, including parts of the modern states of New Mexico and Arizona. The capital was Mesilla, along the southern border. The breakaway region overlapped Arizona Territory, established by the Union government in February 1863.

Arizona was proclaimed a Confederate territory on August 1, 1861, after Colonel John R. Baylor's victory at the Battle of Mesilla. His hold on the area was broken after Glorieta Pass (March 26–28, 1862), the defining battle of the New Mexico Campaign. In July 1862, the Confederate territorial government withdrew to El Paso, Texas. With the approach of Union troops, it relocated to San Antonio, where it remained for the duration of the civil war. The territory continued to be represented in the Confederate States Congress, and Confederate troops continued to fight under the Arizona banner until the war ended. (Full article...)

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Benjamin, c. 1856

Judah Philip Benjamin, QC (August 6, 1811 – May 6, 1884) was an American lawyer and politician. He was a United States senator from Louisiana, a Cabinet officer of the Confederate States and, after his escape to the United Kingdom at the end of the American Civil War, an English barrister. Benjamin was the first Jew to hold a Cabinet position in North America and the first to be elected to the United States Senate who had not renounced his faith.

Benjamin was born to Sephardic Jewish parents from London, who had moved to St. Croix in the Danish West Indies when it was occupied by Britain during the Napoleonic Wars. Seeking greater opportunities, his family immigrated to the United States, eventually settling in Charleston, South Carolina. Judah Benjamin attended Yale College but left without graduating. He moved to New Orleans, where he read law and passed the bar. (Full article...)

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

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 after the Little Rock campaign, Union forces held three-quarters of Arkansas?
... that singer Frank Croxton performed a duet with his father for the unveiling of a monument to a Confederate States Army general?
... 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 according to one historian, James S. Rains made a "significant contribution to the Confederate war effort" by getting drunk?
... that Enoch Marvin Banks resigned from the University of Florida because of public outrage over his belief that the American Civil War was caused by slavery?