Portal:American Civil War

   The American Civil War Portal

Francis Preston Blair, Jr.

Francis Preston Blair Jr. and staff

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)

   Featured article

Main façade (north elevation) from U.S. Route 50, July 2016

The Sloan–Parker House, also known as the Stone House, Parker Family Residence, or Richard Sloan House, is a late-18th-century stone residence near Junction, Hampshire County, in the U.S. state of West Virginia. It was built on land vacated by the Shawnee after the Native American nation had been violently forced to move west to Kansas following their defeat at the Battle of Point Pleasant in 1774. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places on June 5, 1975, becoming Hampshire County's first property to be listed on the register. The Sloan–Parker House has been in the Parker family since 1854. The house and its adjacent farm are located along the Northwestern Turnpike (US 50/WV 28) in the rural Mill Creek valley.

The original fieldstone section of the house was erected in about 1790 for Richard Sloan and his wife Charlotte Van Horn Sloan. Originally from Ireland, Sloan arrived in the United States after the American Revolutionary War and became an indentured servant of David Van Horn. Sloan eloped with Van Horn's daughter Charlotte and they settled in the Mill Creek valley, where they built the original stone portion of the house. The Sloans had ten children, including John and Thomas Sloan, who each (later) represented Hampshire County in the Virginia House of Delegates. Richard Sloan and his family operated a successful weaving business from the stone house and their Sloan counterpanes (woven coverlets with block designs) became well known in the South Branch Valley region. (Full article...)

   Grand Parade of the States

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John Cabell Breckinridge (January 16, 1821 – May 17, 1875) was an American lawyer, politician, and soldier. He represented Kentucky in both houses of Congress and became the 14th and youngest-ever vice president of the United States. Serving from 1857 to 1861, he took office at the age of 36. He was a member of the Democratic Party, and ran for president in 1860 as a Southern Democrat. He served in the U.S. Senate during the outbreak of the American Civil War, but was expelled after joining the Confederate Army. He was appointed Confederate Secretary of War in 1865.

Breckinridge was born near Lexington, Kentucky, to a prominent local family. After serving as a noncombatant during the Mexican–American War, he was elected as a Democrat to the Kentucky House of Representatives in 1849, where he took a states' rights position against interference with slavery. Elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1851, he allied with Stephen A. Douglas in support of the Kansas–Nebraska Act. After reapportionment in 1854 made his re-election unlikely, he declined to run for another term. He was nominated for vice president at the 1856 Democratic National Convention to balance a ticket headed by James Buchanan. The Democrats won the election, but Breckinridge had little influence with Buchanan, and as presiding officer of the Senate, could not express his opinions in debates. He joined Buchanan in supporting the proslavery Lecompton Constitution for Kansas, which led to a split in the Democratic Party. In 1859, he was elected to succeed Senator John J. Crittenden at the end of Crittenden's term in 1861. (Full article...)

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   Featured picture

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

   Did you know...

• ... that after the Little Rock campaign, Union forces held three-quarters of Arkansas?
• ... that according to one historian, James S. Rains made a "significant contribution to the Confederate war effort" by getting drunk?
• ... that Enoch Marvin Banks resigned from the University of Florida because of public outrage over his belief that the American Civil War was caused by slavery?
• ... that some historians believe that Steele's Greenville expedition marked a shift in the Union's war policy?
• ... that in the aftermath of the American Civil War, the only Black-led organization providing teachers to formerly enslaved people was the African Civilization Society?
• ... that at the Battle of La Haye-du-Puits in July 1944, a Confederate flag dating to the American Civil War was raised over the town?

   Subcategories

American Civil War

American Civil War by state

American Civil War by location

American Civil War by year

American Civil War-related lists

Aftermath of the American Civil War

Confederate States of America

Cultural history of the American Civil War

Economic history of the American Civil War

Historiography of the American Civil War

Military awards and decorations of the American Civil War

Military history of the American Civil War

Military units and formations of the American Civil War

American Civil War on the National Register of Historic Places

Origins of the American Civil War

People of the American Civil War

Politics of the American Civil War

Secession crisis of 1860–61

Social history of the American Civil War

American Civil War timelines

Union (American Civil War)

American Civil War crimes

Works about the American Civil War

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Attention needed

...to referencing and citation  • ...to coverage and accuracy  • ...to structure  • ...to grammar  • ...to supporting materials 

Popular pages

Full list

Cleanup needed

The West Tennessee Raids

Requested articles

James Ashby (soldier) • Bluffton expedition • Benjamin D. Fearing • Charles A. Hickman • Richard Henry Jackson • James B. Speers • Charles S. Steedman • Battle of Barton's Station • Lawrence P. Graham • Thomas John Lucas • Daniel Henry Rucker • James Hughes Stokes • Frederick S. Sturmbaugh • Davis Tillson • Action at Nineveh (currently a redirect) • International response to the American Civil War • Spain and the American Civil War • Savannah Campaign Confederate order of battle • Native Americans in the American Civil War (currently disambiguation after deletion) • 1st Battalion, Mississippi Mounted Rifles (Union) • Battle of Lafayette • Requested American Civil War Medal of Honor recipients

Expansion needed

Battle of Boonsborough • Battle of Guard Hill • Battle of Rice's Station • Battle of Simmon's Bluff • Battle of Summit Point • Charleston Arsenal • Edenton Bell Battery • First Battle of Dalton • Blackshear Prison • Edwin Forbes • Hiram B. Granbury • Henry Thomas Harrison • Louis Hébert (colonel) • Benjamin G. Humphreys • Maynard Carbine • Hezekiah G. Spruill • Smith carbine • Edward C. Walthall • Confederate States Secretary of the Navy • Confederate States Secretary of the Treasury • David Henry Williams • Battle of Rome Cross Roads • Delaware in the American Civil War • Ironclad Board • United States Military Railroad • Kansas in the American Civil War • Rufus Daggett • Ebenezer Magoffin • Confederate Quartermaster-General's Department • First Corps, Army of Northern Virginia • Francis Laurens Vinton • Henry Maury • Smith's Expedition to Tupelo • Other American Civil War battle stubs • Other American Civil War stubs

Images needed

Battle of Lone Jack • Preston Pond, Jr. • Melancthon Smith

Merging needed

1st Regiment New York Mounted Rifles and 7th Regiment New York Volunteer Cavalry

Citations needed

1st Alabama Cavalry Regiment (Union) • 4th Maine Battery • 33rd Ohio Infantry • 110th New York Volunteer Infantry • Battle of Hatcher's Run • Camp Dennison • Confederate colonies • CSS Resolute • Dakota War of 1862 • Florida in the American Civil War • Ethan A. Hitchcock (general) • Fort Harker (Alabama) • Gettysburg (1993 film) • Iowa in the American Civil War • Second Battle of Fort Sumter • Samuel Benton

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