Portal:American Civil War

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The American Civil War Portal

Specifications of the third Confederate national flag

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

After the outbreak of the American Civil War, the Kingdom of Hawaii under King Kamehameha IV declared its neutrality on August 26, 1861. However, many Native Hawaiians and Hawaii-born Americans (mainly descendants of the American missionaries), abroad and in the islands, enlisted in the military regiments of various states in the Union and the Confederacy. (Full article...)

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Henry Cornelius Burnett (October 25, 1825 – October 1, 1866) was an American politician who served as a Confederate States senator from Kentucky from 1862 to 1865. From 1855 to 1861, Burnett served four terms in the United States House of Representatives. A lawyer by profession, Burnett had held only one public office—circuit court clerk—before being elected to Congress. He represented Kentucky's 1st congressional district immediately prior to the Civil War. This district contained the entire Jackson Purchase region of the state, which was more sympathetic to the Confederate cause than any other area of Kentucky. Burnett promised the voters of his district that he would have President Abraham Lincoln arraigned for treason. Unionist newspaper editor George D. Prentice described Burnett as "a big, burly, loud-mouthed fellow who is forever raising points of order and objections, to embarrass the Republicans in the House".

Besides championing the secession in Congress, Burnett also worked within Kentucky to bolster the state's support of the Confederacy. He presided over a sovereignty convention in Russellville in 1861 that formed a Confederate government for the state. The delegates to this convention chose Burnett to travel to Richmond, Virginia to secure Kentucky's admission to the Confederacy. Burnett also raised a Confederate regiment at Hopkinsville, Kentucky, and briefly served in the Confederate States Army. Camp Burnett, a Confederate recruiting post two miles west of Clinton in Hickman County, Kentucky, was named after him. (Full article...)

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

Did you know...

... that Colonel Bradley Winslow was brevetted by US president Abraham Lincoln for "brave and gallant conduct" during the siege of Petersburg in the American Civil War?
... that Dubuque, Arkansas, was destroyed in the American Civil War and is now covered by the waters of Bull Shoals Lake?
... that the only functioning secondary school in Mississippi during the American Civil War was founded by Thomas S. Gathright?
... 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 some historians believe that Steele's Greenville expedition marked a shift in the Union's war policy?