When did the American Civil War happen?
The American Civil War was fought from 1861 to 1865, between the Northern states, the Union, and 11 Southern states that had seceded, the Confederacy. It ended slavery in the United States.
After Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860, Southern states began leaving the Union, fearing he would limit slavery. The war began on April 12, 1861, when Confederate forces fired on Fort Sumter in South Carolina.
Major battles included Antietam, Gettysburg and Vicksburg. The war was the deadliest in American history, with an estimated 620,000 to 750,000 soldiers killed. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 made ending slavery a central aim of the Union.
How it ended
Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, on April 9, 1865. Days later, Lincoln was assassinated. The 13th Amendment abolished slavery in December 1865.
The war also changed the country in lasting ways. It strengthened the power of the federal government, sped up industrial growth in the North and led to the Reconstruction era, when the nation tried to rebuild the South and protect the rights of formerly enslaved people. Many of those protections weakened after Reconstruction ended in 1877.
Did You Know?
The Civil War was one of the first wars widely photographed. Photographers such as Mathew Brady brought images of battlefields to the public.