Overview:"In the spring of 1861, decades of simmering tensions between the northern and southern United States over issues including states’ rights versus federal authority, westward expansion and slavery exploded into the American Civil War (1861-65). The election of the anti-slavery Republican Abraham Lincoln as president in 1860 caused seven southern states to secede from the Union to form the Confederate States of America; four more joined them after the first shots of the Civil War were fired... The War Between the States, as the Civil War was also known, pitted neighbor against neighbor and in some cases, brother against brother. By the time it ended in Confederate surrender in 1865, the Civil War proved to be the costliest war ever fought on American soil, with some 620,000 of 2.4 million soldiers killed, millions more injured and the population and territory of the South devastated."
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Compromise of 1850
"Divisions over slavery in territory gained in the Mexican-American (1846-48). War were resolved in the Compromise of 1850. It consisted of laws admitting California as a free state, creating Utah and New Mexico territories with the question of slavery in each to be determined by popular sovereignty, settling a Texas-New Mexico boundary dispute in the former’s favor, ending the slave trade in Washington, D.C., and making it easier for southerners to recover fugitive slaves." - History.com
You can read more about the arguments over the Compromise of 1850 by clicking on the link below from PBS: |
Bleeding Kansas
"The Kansas-Nebrask Act was an 1854 bill that mandated “popular sovereignty”–allowing settlers of a territory to decide whether slavery would be allowed within a new state’s borders. Proposed by Stephen A. Douglas–Abraham Lincoln’s opponent in the influential Lincoln-Douglas debates–the bill overturned the Missouri Compromise’s use of latitude as the boundary between slave and free territory. The conflicts that arose between pro-slavery and anti-slavery settlers in the aftermath of the act’s passage led to the period of violence known as Bleeding Kansas, and helped paved the way for the American Civil War (1861-65)." You can continue reading about the events that unfolded by clicking on the link below:
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State-by-state information:
The North:
The South:
The Election of Lincoln
The election of 1860 marked the peak of heightened tensions between the North and South, as Lincoln won the election by winning only Northern states. In the eyes of the South, they had not elected Lincoln, and in the fear of losing slavery, Southern states began seceding or leaving the Union. South Carolina began the domino effect, followed by Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and finally Tennessee. You can read more about the impact of Lincoln's election by reading the link below:
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War Breaks Out at Fort SumterAs tensions rose with each secession from a Southern state, the Northern and Southern states began organizing their own separate armies in the event of war. When war began, it was a Confederate attack on Fort Sumter, where it lasted hours of bombardment. The first and only official war of Americans against Americans had begun, and no one could predict how it would end. You can read more about the start of the Civil War by clicking on the article below from the Smithsonian Magazine:
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Civil War PhotosThe Civil War was actually the first American war where photography was used to capture these moments in time! Click on the link below to view some of them:
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Civil War VideosSo what exactly did the Civil War look like? It's hard to imagine Americans fighting Americans, so click on the link below to see some historical reenactments from the war:
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Civil War MapsAlthough the Civil War was a war between the North and the South, most of the fighting actually took place in the South. Click on the link below to view some maps of the time period:
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