Portal:American Civil War

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The American Civil War Portal

This chaplain gave services to Union troops

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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An interior sketch of Fort Runyon, showing activity at the fort during August 1861. The Capitol building is faintly visible in the background, across the Potomac River.

Fort Runyon was a timber and earthwork fort constructed by the Union Army following the occupation of northern Virginia in the American Civil War in order to defend the southern approaches to the Long Bridge as part of the defenses of Washington, D.C. during that war. The Columbia Turnpike and Alexandria and Loudon Railroad ran through the pentagonal structure, which controlled access to Washington via the Long Bridge. With a perimeter of almost 1,500 yards (1,400 m), and due to its unusual shape it was approximately the same size, shape, and in almost the same location as the Pentagon, built 80 years later.

Runyon was built immediately after the entry of Union forces into Virginia on May 24, 1861, on the land of James Roach, a Washington building contractor. Fort Runyon was the largest fort in the ring of defenses that protected Washington during the Civil War and was named after Brigadier General Theodore Runyon, commander of the Fourth Division of the Army of Northeastern Virginia during the First Battle of Bull Run. Union soldiers garrisoned the fort until its dismantling following the end of the Civil War in 1865. Today, no trace of the fort remains on the site, though a historical marker has been constructed by the Arlington Historical Society. (Full article...)

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Grand Parade of the States

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts played a significant role in national events prior to and during the American Civil War (1861–1865). Massachusetts dominated the early antislavery movement during the 1830s, motivating activists across the nation. This, in turn, increased sectionalism in the North and South, one of the factors that led to the war. Politicians from Massachusetts, echoing the views of social activists, further increased national tensions. The state was dominated by the Republican Party and was also home to many Radical Republican leaders who promoted harsh treatment of slave owners and, later, the former civilian leaders of the Confederate States of America and the military officers in the Confederate States Army.

Once hostilities began, Massachusetts supported the war effort in several significant ways, sending 159,165 men to serve in the Union Army and the Union Navy for the loyal North. One of the best known Massachusetts units was the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, the first regiment of African American soldiers (led by white officers). Additionally, a number of important generals came from Massachusetts, including Benjamin F. Butler, Joseph Hooker, who commanded the Federal Army of the Potomac in early 1863, as well as Edwin V. Sumner and Darius N. Couch, who both successively commanded the II Corps of the Union Army. (Full article...)

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1896 portrait

Benjamin Harrison (August 20, 1833 – March 13, 1901) was the 23rd president of the United States, serving from 1889 to 1893. He was a member of the Harrison family of Virginia—a grandson of the ninth president, William Henry Harrison, and a great-grandson of Benjamin Harrison V, a Founding Father. A Union Army veteran and a Republican, he defeated incumbent Grover Cleveland to win the presidency.

Harrison was born on a farm by the Ohio River and graduated from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. After moving to Indianapolis, he established himself as a prominent local attorney, Presbyterian church leader, and politician in Indiana. During the American Civil War, he served in the Union Army as a colonel, and was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as a brevet brigadier general of volunteers in 1865. Harrison unsuccessfully ran for governor of Indiana in 1876. The Indiana General Assembly elected Harrison to a six-year term in the Senate, where he served from 1881 to 1887. (Full article...)

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

Did you know...

... 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 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 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 Benjamin Jackson was likely paid at least $300 to fight in the American Civil War as Lewis Saunders?
... that singer Frank Croxton performed a duet with his father for the unveiling of a monument to a Confederate States Army general?