Portal:American Civil War

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The American Civil War Portal

This chaplain gave services to Union troops

The American Civil War (1861–1865) was a sectional rebellion against the United States of America by the Confederate States, formed of eleven southern slave 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.

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An ironclad was a steam-propelled warship of the later 19th century, protected by iron or steel armor plates. Developed as a result of the vulnerability of wooden warships to explosive or incendiary shells, the first ironclad battleship, La Gloire, was launched by the French Navy in 1859; she prompted the British Royal Navy to start building ironclads. After the first clashes of ironclads took place during the American Civil War, it became clear that the ironclad had replaced the unarmored line-of-battle ship as the most powerful warship afloat.

Ironclads were designed for several roles, including as high seas battleships, coastal defence ships, and long-range cruisers. The rapid evolution of warship design in the late 19th century transformed the ironclad from a wooden-hulled vessel which carried sails to supplement its steam engines into the steel-built, turreted battleships and cruisers familiar in the 20th century. This change was pushed forward by the development of heavier naval guns (the ironclads of the 1880s carried some of the heaviest guns ever mounted at sea), more sophisticated steam engines, and advances in metallurgy which made steel shipbuilding possible. The rapid pace of change in the ironclad period meant that many ships were obsolete as soon as they were complete, and that naval tactics were in a state of flux. Many ironclads were built to make use of the ram or the torpedo, which a number of naval designers considered the crucial weapons of naval combat. There is no clear end to the ironclad period, but towards the end of the 1890s the term ironclad dropped out of use. New ships were increasingly constructed to a standard pattern and designated battleships or armored cruisers.

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Grand Parade of the States

Strategic location and a rich economy affected the role of Ohio, providing troops, military officers, and supplies to the Union army. Due to its central location in the Northern United States and burgeoning population, Ohio was both politically and logistically important to the war effort. Despite the state boasting a number of very powerful Republican politicians, portions of Southern Ohio followed the Peace Democrats and openly opposed President Lincoln's policies. Ohio played an important part in the Underground Railroad prior to the war, and remained a haven for escaped and runaway slaves during the war years.

The state raised nearly 320,000 soldiers for the Union army, behind only New York and Pennsylvania in total manpower contributed to the military. A disproportionate number of leading generals hailed from Ohio, including Ulysses S. Grant, William T. Sherman, and Philip H. Sheridan. Five Ohio-born Civil War officers would later serve as the President of the United States, and the Fighting McCooks gained fame as the largest immediate family group ever to become officers in the U.S. Army. Ohio was spared many of the horrors of war, although Morgan's Raid in the summer of 1863 spread terror among the populace. Only two relatively minor battles were fought within the state's borders. Morgan's Raid in the summer of 1863 spread terror among the populace. Ohio troops fought in nearly every major campaign during the war. Nearly 7,000 Buckeye soldiers were killed in action. Its most significant Civil War site is Johnson's Island, located in Sandusky Bay of Lake Erie. Barracks and outbuildings were constructed for a prisoner of war depot, intended chiefly for officers. Over three years more than 15,000 Confederate men were held there. The island includes a Confederate cemetery where about 300 men were buried.

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Selected biography

Robert Anderson (June 14, 1805 – October 26, 1871) was an American military leader. He served as a Union Army officer in the American Civil War, known for his command of Fort Sumter at the start of the war. He is often referred to as "Major Robert Anderson", referring to his rank at the time of Fort Sumter.

As Southern states began to secede, Anderson, a pro-slavery Kentuckian, remained loyal to the Union. He was the commanding officer of Fort Sumter at Charleston Harbor in Charleston, South Carolina, when on April 12, 1861 it was bombarded by forces of the Confederate States of America. The artillery attack was commanded by P. G. T. Beauregard, who had been Anderson's student at West Point, and continued until Major Anderson, badly outnumbered and outgunned, surrendered the fort on April 14. Anderson's actions at Fort Sumter made him an immediate national hero, but age and infirmity had ended his usefulness in the field.

One notable post-war achievement of Anderson took place in Braintree, Massachusetts, in 1869, when he visited Braintree to discuss the future of the U.S. Army with the founder of the United States Military Academy, Major General Sylvanus Thayer. An outcome of that visit was establishment of the Military Academy's Association of Graduates (AoG).

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