Portal:American Civil War

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The American Civil War Portal

Engagement between the Monitor and the Merrimac on March 9, 1862

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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Main façade (north elevation) from U.S. Route 50, July 2016

The Sloan–Parker House, also known as the Stone House, Parker Family Residence, or Richard Sloan House, is a late-18th-century stone residence near Junction, Hampshire County, in the U.S. state of West Virginia. It was built on land vacated by the Shawnee after the Native American nation had been violently forced to move west to Kansas following their defeat at the Battle of Point Pleasant in 1774. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places on June 5, 1975, becoming Hampshire County's first property to be listed on the register. The Sloan–Parker House has been in the Parker family since 1854. The house and its adjacent farm are located along the Northwestern Turnpike (US 50/WV 28) in the rural Mill Creek valley.

The original fieldstone section of the house was erected in about 1790 for Richard Sloan and his wife Charlotte Van Horn Sloan. Originally from Ireland, Sloan arrived in the United States after the American Revolutionary War and became an indentured servant of David Van Horn. Sloan eloped with Van Horn's daughter Charlotte and they settled in the Mill Creek valley, where they built the original stone portion of the house. The Sloans had ten children, including John and Thomas Sloan, who each (later) represented Hampshire County in the Virginia House of Delegates. Richard Sloan and his family operated a successful weaving business from the stone house and their Sloan counterpanes (woven coverlets with block designs) became well known in the South Branch Valley region. (Full article...)

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Grand Parade of the States

At the outbreak of the American Civil War in April 1861, Kansas was the newest U.S. state, admitted just months earlier in January. The state had formally rejected slavery by popular vote and vowed to fight on the side of the Union, though ideological divisions with neighboring Missouri, a slave state, had led to violent conflict in previous years and persisted for the duration of the war.

While Kansas was a rural frontier state, distant from the major theaters of war, and its Unionist government was never seriously threatened by Confederate military forces, several engagements did occur within its borders, as well as countless raids and skirmishes between local irregulars, including the Lawrence Massacre by pro-Confederate guerrillas under William Quantrill in August 1863. Later the state witnessed the defeat of Confederate General Sterling Price by Union General Alfred Pleasonton at the Battle of Mine Creek, the second-largest cavalry action of the war. Additionally, some of the Union's first Black regiments would form in the state of Kansas. These contributions would inform the complicated race relations in the state during the reconstruction era (1865–1877). (Full article...)

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Joseph Benson Foraker (July 5, 1846 – May 10, 1917) was an American politician of the Republican Party who served as the 37th governor of Ohio from 1886 to 1890 and as a United States senator from Ohio from 1897 until 1909.

Foraker was born in rural Ohio; he enlisted at age 16 in the Union Army during the American Civil War. He fought for almost three years, attaining the rank of captain. After the war, he was a member of Cornell University's first graduating class, and became a lawyer. He was elected a judge in 1879 and became known as a political speaker. He was defeated in his first run for the governorship in 1883, but was elected two years later. As Ohio governor, he built an alliance with the Republican Party "boss" Mark Hanna, but fell out with him in 1888. Foraker was defeated for reelection in 1889, but was elected U.S. senator by the Ohio General Assembly in 1896, after an unsuccessful bid for that office in 1892. (Full article...)

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

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 Dubuque, Arkansas, was destroyed in the American Civil War and is now covered by the waters of Bull Shoals Lake?
... that according to one historian, James S. Rains made a "significant contribution to the Confederate war effort" by getting drunk?
... that CSS Beaufort fought USS Albatross in the first ship-versus-ship action of the American Civil War?
... 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 actor George Kunkel portrayed in blackface the character of Uncle Tom, using it at first to promote slavery during the American Civil War but later to attack it, after his views had changed?