American Civil War

The American Civil War was an armed struggle between the Northern Union States, led by President Abraham Lincoln, and the seceding Southern Confederate States, under Jefferson Davis. It took place from 1861 to 1865, in the United States of America. In this vicious fratricidal war, more than 600,000 men lost their lives as the winners, the Northern States, imposed their political and economic system on the Southern States.

Real causes of the War of Secession

Economic cause– Businessmen in the industrialized Northern States lobbied for high tariffs on imported European manufactured products, while Southern States wanted a free trade economic system which would allow them to export their cotton to Europe without economic barrier for their agricultural products on the other side of the Atlantic, and to import manufactured products from Europe at a lower price than those produced in the Northern States; in a rural-based economy, the South held onto slavery because it provided plantation owners with cheap labor, rendering them able to export cotton to Europe at a lower price.

Legal cause– Southern slave owners claimed that they had the right to own slaves beyond their state boundaries, even in the Northern Free States where slavery had been abolished or forbidden; this claim was, of course opposed by the North, which included the Federal Government.

Ideological/religious cause– The population of the Northern States was basically Christian protestants (baptists, Lutherans, Calvinists, evangelicals, etc.), who opposed vehemently to any form of slavery because they followed the Christian precept that all men were created equals, hence entitled to the basic civil liberties and rights.

Summary

On December 20, 1860, South Carolina seceded from the Union, right after the Republican Abraham Lincoln had won the presidential election. On February 2, 1861, six other Southern States (North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, and Texas) also broke away from the Union. This massive secession would lead to the formation of a Confederate government, under Jefferson Davis. On April 17, 1861, the State of Virginia would also join the Confederacy.

Secession and hostilities were triggered when the Republican Abraham Lincoln enacted tariff hikes in 1861, which angered the representatives and senators from the Southern States, giving up their seats in Congress. The American Civil War began when the Rebels, under Pierre G.T. Beauregard, attacked the Union's Fort Sumter, in Charleston Harbor, under Major Robert Anderson, bombing it on April 12 and 13, 1861. Anderson surrendered and the Rebels took the fort.

Although the North had twice the population of the South and a stronger economy, the American Civil War lasted more than four years, due to the fact that the South had better Generals and tougher troops. This is the main reason why the first battles of the war were Confederate victories, such as the 1st and 2nd Battles of Bull Run, and the battles of Chancellorsville and Fredericksburg; but the North won at the Battle of Antietam (1862), Gettysburg (1863), Cedar Creek (1864), and the final Appomattox Campaign (March-April 1865), commanded by Ulysses S Grant. The war resulted in a Union victory but at the cost of 600,000 dead on both sides.

Commanders

Union Army: George B McClellan, Ulysses S Grant, Joseph Hooker

Confederate Army: Robert E Lee, James Longstreet, Thomas Jonathan Jackson, George Pickett.