Portal:American Civil War

The American Civil War Portal

Photographic images of dead impacted the home front

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)

Refresh with new selections below (purge)

Featured article

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...)

More featured articles

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...)

More states articles

Featured biography

James Wood Bush (c. 1844–45 – April 24, 1906) was an American Union navy sailor of British and Native Hawaiian descent. He was among a group of more than one hundred Native Hawaiian and Hawaii-born combatants in the American Civil War, at a time when the Kingdom of Hawaii was still an independent nation.

Enlisting in the Union navy in 1864, Bush served as a sailor aboard USS Vandalia and the captured Confederate vessel USS Beauregard, which maintained the blockade of the ports of the Confederacy. He was discharged from service in 1865 after an injury, which developed into a chronic condition in later life. The impoverished Bush was unable to return to Hawaii for more than a decade, during which time he traveled through New England and much of the Pacific. Back in Hawaii, he worked as a government tax collector and road supervisor for the island of Kauai, where he settled down. In later life, he converted to Mormonism and became an active member of the Hawaiian Mission. After the annexation of Hawaii to the United States, Bush was recognized for his military service, and in 1905 was granted a government pension for the injuries he received in the Navy. He died at his home on Kauai on April 24, 1906. (Full article...)

More featured biographies

WikiProjects

edit

Featured picture

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

Did you know...

... that an African-American was appointed postmaster of Baynesville, Virginia, in 1893 in preference to a former Confederate soldier?
... that Benjamin Jackson was likely paid at least $300 to fight in the American Civil War as Lewis Saunders?
... that American Civil War chaplain Thomas Mooney was pulled from service after baptizing a cannon?
... that Edward L. Molineux seized goods worth $210 million in 2025 from the Confederacy during the American Civil War?
... that some Confederate bullets were sourced from a silver mine?
... that the Union Navy, despite being embroiled in the American Civil War, built the Wampanoag-class frigates for a planned war against Great Britain?