The Civil war was a violent and bloody conflict that lasted for four years. It was fought between the United States and 11 Southern slave states. The main reason for the war was slavery. The South wanted to keep slavery. The Union wanted to end it.
In the 1850s, more and more Northerners came to believe that the bondage of chattel slavery needed to be ended. Abraham Lincoln, the antislavery candidate of the Republican Party, won the 1860 election. Seven of the states that held slavery seceded and formed the Confederate States of America.
On April 12, 1861, a Confederate army attacked a Federal garrison at Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, forcing the soldiers to lower their American flag and surrender. President Lincoln declared an “insurrection,” and called out 75,000 militia to suppress the rebellion.
Both sides used different strategies to achieve victory. The Union pursued a blockade of southern ports, a major naval offensive into the hinterland, and a series of military strikes. Jefferson Davis and the Confederate leadership preferred a defensive strategy.
The war produced enormous expenditures. Both the Union and the Confederacy imposed national taxes, tampered with civil liberties, and resorted to conscription. Many Civil War veterans went into politics after the war. Among them were Generals Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee. One-third of the soldiers in the Union Army were immigrants. Most of them were Irish, but the ranks also included Germans, Frenchmen, Italians and Scottish men.
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