History UsefulNotes / TheAmericanCivilWar

* ''The History Channel: Civil War'':
** The first ''Civil War — A Nation Divided'', is an Activision first person shooter set in the Civil War, where players can choose to play on either side in many major battles. Being a first person shooter, the more rapid-fire guns of the era are shown to be more common than they actually were in real life. Reloading sequences were also abbreviated[[note]]The revolvers skip adding precussion caps, for one, which would make them unable to fire in real life.[[/note]] to speed them up a bit. Reviews were mostly mixed.

* ''Creator/SidMeier’s Gettysburg!'' (1997) and its sequel ''Sid Meier’s Antietam!'' (1999) are {{Real Time|Strategy}} [[TurnBasedTactics Tactics]] games allowing the player to command either army at any level in the respective battles or in the campaigns leading up to them. The games were noted for [[DoingItForTheArt the incredible attention to historical accuracy and detail]].

Media depictions of the Southern part of the United States at this time usually show a world filled with romantic, tall-columned plantation houses where delicate {{Southern Belle}}s sashay in large skirts and [[{{Fainting}} Corset Faint]] at every available opportunity. Chivalrous, [[FatSweatySouthernerInAWhiteSuit cigar-chomping, white-tuxedo-wearing]] {{Southern Gentlem|an}}en pistol-duel at dawn and the word "Damyankees!"[[note]]One word: the two-word phrase "Damn Yankees!" is for cursing the UsefulNotes/{{Baseball}} team.[[/note]] is used with a fair degree of regularity. Slaves work the fields down here, although whether a production chooses to show the more ''realistic'' aspects of slave life depends a lot on the era in which it’s made. Don’t expect to see many [[ForgottenTrope whitewashed "happy" portrayals]] of slaves in ''any'' modern series. People despise historical inaccuracy these days, given that there’s really no excuse for it. You don’t see much of pro-slavery Confederate President UsefulNotes/JeffersonDavis in most Civil War movies.

In the North, there is industry and patriotism, and abolitionists decry the evils of slavery from every pulpit. Abraham Lincoln is a pretty popular guy in these parts — he spends most of his time in the Oval Office, brooding over battle maps and writing deep historical speeches on stovepipe hats. Ask him why he’s fighting the war and he’ll tell you it’s to free the slaves. Never mind that this runs contrary what he actually ''said'' when asked during the war[[note]]"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing ''any'' slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing ''all'' the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that."[[/note]]; this is HollywoodHistory, where heroes are pure and their motives always perfectly clear.[[note]]Historians still debate whether this reflects Lincoln's genuine motivations or was pragmatic rhetoric meant to win broader support for the war; even those in the latter camp still agree that "racial equality" was never something Lincoln had in mind. Even among the most strident abolitionists (and Lincoln was a more moderate abolitionist), ''very'' few believed in racial equality. Most agreed with the slaveowners that blacks were a "lower race" than whites, but felt that even the "lowest" of humanity still deserved better than slavery.[[/note]] You’re lucky if you see portrayals of black persons ''at all'' in the North, especially in older media, even though they comprised a disproportionate 10% of the Union army by war's end (''Film/{{Glory}}'' being a notable depiction thereof).

** ''[[HistoryCivilWarSecretMissions Civil War — Secret Missions]]'' is pretty much more of the same, except with more types of guns, somewhat better graphics, and focusing on covert missions related to major battles rather than the major battles themselves.

** ''Civil War — Secret Missions'' is pretty much more of the same, except with more types of guns, somewhat better graphics, and focusing on covert missions related to major battles rather than the major battles themselves.

Additionally, for all the suffering white Southerners experienced, newly emancipated black Southerners had it far, ''far'' worse; despite some early promises from Union generals and Republican politicians that they would receive reparations for the generations of unpaid labor and suffering they had experienced, almost all federal compensation actually went to the slaveowners. Most freedpeople were left just as penniless as they were before the war, and many became trapped in cycles of debt to former slaveowners that persisted for generations.\\\

The American Civil War was almost fated to happen, as the enduring issue of slavery had only been placated by stopgap measures. However, as far back as the [[UsefulNotes/TheAmericanRevolution Declaration of Independence]], Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin agreed that Slavery would probably [[CassandraTruth tear the country apart within about a century]]. While it wasn't the only factor in starting the war, slavery was certainly one of the main points of contention, as argued by the numerous declarations regarding the seceding states, who listed the maintaining of the institution of slavery as their ''raison d'être''. Sentiments regarding the abolition or regulation of slavery had existed since before the nation's founding, with the strongest advocates mostly being Christian groups in New England. Many noted how slavery contradicted both Christian and American ideals of equality (either under God or under the law). \\\

In this chaos, an obscure former Whig Congressman named Abraham Lincoln rose to prominence, advocating for the Republican Party in his home state of Illinois. He attempted to run for the senate in the 1858 midterms but was defeated by his opponent, Stephen Douglas, as at the time senators were still chosen by the state legislature, which was controlled by the Democrats. However, his clear-eyed rhetoric opposing the institution of slavery resonated with many, and Southern Democrats subsequently viewed him as a major threat. Two years later, Lincoln threw his (stovepipe) hat into the ring as the Republican nominee, inciting a major backlash throughout the south as pro-slavery crowds vowed to secede if the Republicans won. Due to a schism within the Democratic Party and divisions among the pro-slavery side, Lincoln won the 1860 election. The response from the southern states was immediate: the South Carolina legislature proclaimed its secession from the Union. While the (official) opening volleys of the War had yet to be fired, South Carolina's secession had changed the matter of ''if'' there would be a War to a matter of ''when.''

Less than a month after South Carolina declared secession, multiple other slave states joined them, with the states of Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, and Texas all coming together in February of 1861 to declare a new nation, the Confederate States of America. Keep in mind that Abraham Lincoln had not yet been inaugurated and held no actual power, but the outgoing President Buchanan still had a limp and unwilling response to the rebellion, mostly due to his pro-slavery views.\\\

The first shots of the war proper were fired on Fort Sumter, near Charleston, the capital of South Carolina. Confederate forces (most of whom were, by this point, turncoat soldiers and officers) shelled the fort and forced it to surrender. In response, Lincoln called for volunteers to help put down the rebellion, prompting the states of Tennessee, Virginia, Arkansas, and North Carolina to secede as well, as they refused to send any forces to aid the federal cause.\\\

The Confederacy still engenders sympathy in certain states, generally those that rebelled and in some (but not all) border states (Delaware and most of Maryland, for instance, [[OldShame would prefer that you even forget that they were ever seen as Southern]],[[note]]Delaware in particular hates being reminded of this, and Delawareans (all five of them) like to distract people from this historical fact by stressing that when the NAACP ran its full-court press against racial segregation in schools in the series of cases that eventually led to ''Brown v. Board of Education'', the Delaware courts were the only state courts to agree that the practice was unconstitutional.[[/note]] while Kentuckians are perfectly comfortable as firm Southerners; Missouri is more mixed, in keeping with its reputation as a nether-here-nor-there Southern-Midwestern hodgepodge). The American Civil War [[IHaveManyNames carries many names]] partially as a result of this mixed memory: it is "The War of the Rebellion", the "War Between the States", the "Second American Revolution",[[note]]An Unsuccessful one[[/note], the "War of Southern Treason", the "War of Northern Aggression",[[note]]Which is a strange name for the war considering that the Confederates ''fired the first shot'' in a blatantly aggressive move on Fort Sumter. But then, [[https://deadconfederates.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/googletrendswarofnorthernagression.png it is a comparatively new name, having only gained popularity since the 1950s]] - coincidentally when the UsefulNotes/CivilRightsMovement started making very successful traction. Make of that what you will.[[/note]] "Lincoln's War", the "Slaveholders’ Revolt", "The War for Southern Independence", and the "Late Unpleasantness"[[note]]This one is usually tongue-in-cheek[[/note]]-- though rarely, if ever, referred to by any of those names while the war itself was being fought.[[note]]At the outset some Secessionists referred to their cause as the Second American Revolution, a term later used by others for the entire era of the Civil War and Reconstruction. Outside the United States, the preferred term is usually the American Civil War or, in France and Germany, the (American) War of Secession.[[/note]] For much of the 20th century the most popular narrative (especially in the South) was that the war was a misguided but in some ways noble fight for a "Lost Cause" for "Freedom from the Tyranny of Central Government". That narrative was politically useful for purposes of reconciling the two sides and for maintaining white supremacy, but it has increasingly been criticized by scholars, activists, and storytellers who point out that the "freedom" the Confederacy fought and killed for was the "Freedom to Own, Use, and Abuse People as They Saw Fit".\\\

The Confederacy still engenders sympathy in certain states, generally those that rebelled and in some (but not all) border states (Delaware and most of Maryland, for instance, [[OldShame would prefer that you even forget that they were ever seen as Southern]],[[note]]Delaware in particular hates being reminded of this, and Delawareans (all five of them) like to distract people from this historical fact by stressing that when the NAACP ran its full-court press against racial segregation in schools in the series of cases that eventually led to ''Brown v. Board of Education'', the Delaware courts were the only state courts to agree that the practice was unconstitutional.[[/note]] while Kentuckians are perfectly comfortable as firm Southerners; Missouri is more mixed, in keeping with its reputation as a nether-here-nor-there Southern-Midwestern hodgepodge). The American Civil War [[IHaveManyNames carries many names]] partially as a result of this mixed memory: it is "The War of the Rebellion", the "War Between the States", the "War of Southern Treason", the "War of Northern Aggression",[[note]]Which is a strange name for the war considering that the Confederates ''fired the first shot'' in a blatantly aggressive move on Fort Sumter. But then, [[https://deadconfederates.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/googletrendswarofnorthernagression.png it is a comparatively new name, having only gained popularity since the 1950s]] - coincidentally when the UsefulNotes/CivilRightsMovement started making very successful traction. Make of that what you will.[[/note]] "Lincoln's War", the "Slaveholders’ Revolt", "The War for Southern Independence", and the "Late Unpleasantness"-- though rarely, if ever, referred to by any of those names while the war itself was being fought.[[note]]At the outset some Secessionists referred to their cause as the Second American Revolution, a term later used by others for the entire era of the Civil War and Reconstruction. Outside the United States, the preferred term is usually the American Civil War or, in France and Germany, the (American) War of Secession.[[/note]] For much of the 20th century the most popular narrative (especially in the South) was that the war was a misguided but in some ways noble fight for a "Lost Cause" for "Freedom from the Tyranny of Central Government". That narrative was politically useful for purposes of reconciling the two sides and for maintaining white supremacy, but it has increasingly been criticized by scholars, activists, and storytellers who point out that the "freedom" the Confederacy fought and killed for was the "Freedom to Own, Use, and Abuse People as They Saw Fit".\\\

Again, as is typical of civil wars, the initial phase of the war was something of a mess. The 1861 secession of the slave states didn’t see ''all'' the slave states secede, though all those states that did secede were slave states. The slave states of Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri remained loyal[[note]]well, loyal''ish'' ... Missouri was itself deeply divided, and the Governor along with his supporters from the state's General Assembly ''did'' enact an Ordinance of Secession... after being chased out of the state capital by the Union Army, so it wasn't formally acknowledged by the pro-Union government remaining, who declared the Governor's office vacant and appointed a successor[[/note]] through the initial secession crisis and the war that followed once the U.S. Army had suppressed their more rebellious districts. A rebel state (Virginia) even suffered its own secession crisis when the half of the state (the future state of West Virginia) on the Appalachian Mountain range ''[[RebelliousRebel defected back]]'' to the government as a new slave state (albeit one with hardly any slaves and a constitutional commitment to abolish slavery by 1865).\\\

The extremely popular 1852 novel ''Literature/UncleTomsCabin'' by Northern author Harriet Beecher Stowe helped to expose the conditions of slavery to a wider audience and brought more sympathy to the cause of abolition in the North than ever before. The increasing polarization and division affected both the major political parties of the time, the Democrats and the Whigs, effectively making it so that the only way anyone could get either party's nomination at that year's presidential election was by being someone who was blandly inoffensive and had never expressed any strong views on the slavery issue, with Democrat candidate UsefulNotes/FranklinPierce eventually steaming to [[LandslideElection landslide majorities]] in the presidential and congressional elections largely just because he was younger and better-looking than Whig candidate Winfield Scott. Pierce soon found himself at a loss as to how to deal with the situation, however, and followed in Fillmore's footsteps of just keeping quiet and hoping everyone eventually calmed down. To put it lightly, they didn't.\\\

The Bleeding Kansas issue saw the end of the Whig Party, which became bitterly divided over the issue of slavery. From that division rose the Republican Party, which was staunchly anti-slavery and placed opposition to the expansion of slavery on the top of its policy platform. The Republicans rapidly gained support throughout the North, and it soon became feasible that the party could soon win the presidency and majorities in Congress; down the road, this could lead to anti-slavery Supreme Court justices as well. This outcome was abated for 4 more years when Democrat UsefulNotes/JamesBuchanan won the 1856 election. Seeing how Fillmore's attempt at a compromise and Pierce's encouragement of popular sovereignty had both arguably made the situation worse rather than doing anything to help, Buchanan decided that the best course of action... was to do nothing at all. He thus had what most historians consider to be one of the worst Presidential administrations ever, largely sitting on his hands while the country tore itself apart. His administration saw some infamous events foreshadowing the war to come, such as Representative Preston Brooks (D-SC) brutally beating Senator Charles Sumner (R-MA) in the Senate chamber after Sumner had delivered a speech vilifying slaveholders, including a relative of Brooks.\\\

Numerous abolitionist groups saw an increase in members, with the American Anti-Slavery Society being the most famous. However, abolition was still not the majority sentiment in the North, with most northerners being more concerned with the spread of slavery to the Western Territories and total abolition still a far-off dream. Numerous proposals for how to deal with expansion floated back and forth. Some parties, such as the Free Soil Party, sought total federal control over the issue, with only Congress able to decide if a state was free or slave. The pro-slavery movement argued for "States Rights," in this case the right of states themselves to choose whether they were free or slave at their own discretion. This is where the revisionist "states rights" argument falls apart: Yes, the South was fighting for "states rights," but the rights they were fighting for were the rights to own slaves.\\\

Meanwhile, on the battlefield itself, the Age of [[MoreDakka Dakka]] has dawned, which means that everything anybody knew about warfare is wrong again. There is smoke and blood ''everywhere'', with doctors severing gangrened legs left and right, bugles blowing, drummer boys drumming, and cavalry charging every which way (often resulting in casualty figures upwards of 30% per battle). Expect to see at least one man from either side bravely carrying a tattered unit flag until he gets shot with a Minié ball and crumples artfully in a heap. One aspect that tends to get lost in nearly all depictions of the war is that as in previous wars, but unlike the ones that came after, the majority of deaths were still due to non-combat-related causes such as various diseases contracted in the field (such as "camp fever") and the still-primitive state of battlefield medicine that meant almost any infected wound could kill if it wasn't on an easily-amputated limb. The cumulative effect was enough, especially near the end of the war when the campaigns were relentless, to churn out men suffering from "soldier's heart"-- what we would today recognize as [[ShellShockedVeteran PTSD]]. Americans like to believe that they learned this well and kept it in mind, while the European powers didn't notice until after UsefulNotes/WorldWarI presented it to them on a massively greater scale.[[note]]This is true if one sticks only to the effects of the war upon the USA’s economy and society, for this period was one of rapid development that made the tactical lessons of the war irrelevant in just two decades.[[/note]] On a strategic level, the war is one of the first, and certainly the largest, to have mechanized supply lines via railroad.

* ''[[Animorphs Recap/AnimorphsTheResistance]]'' #47 is partially told through journal entries by an ancestor of Jake's who fought in the Civil War. His storyline [[PlotParallel parallels]] Jake's throughout the book.

The early months of Buchanan's administration also saw what in retrospect is regarded by many as the PointOfNoReturn for the path to the Civil War, namely the ''Dred Scott v. Sandford'' decision. The case revolved around a slave named Dred Scott, who tried suing for his freedom on the grounds that his owner had taken him into a territory where slavery was illegal, meaning he should have been automatically freed. The Supreme Court, in a disastrously misguided attempt to put the abolitionists in their place and settle the issue once and for all, not only refused to grant Scott his freedom, they stripped all African-Americans (not just the ones who were slaves, mind) of their citizenship of the United States, thus preventing slaves from being able to bring lawsuits against their owners in federal courts. On top of that, the ruling retroactively declared the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional and legalized slavery in all the territories, opening up a whole new can of worms as to whether this meant former slaves who had won their freedom in court after being taken to a free territory could be forced back into slavery (though the question would ultimately never be put to the test before other events rendered it moot). The decision would create far more problems than it solved, infuriating the Northern states to the point where even people who were previously indifferent about slavery began to support its abolition, and while much of the South was happy with the decision, some Southerners merely saw it as the first step to getting slavery legalized throughout the entire United States.[[note]](Indeed, many on both sides were quick to note that a seemingly innocuous part of the ruling -- citing that the government could not free slaves who had been brought into free territories on the grounds that it was depriving citizens of their property without due process of law -- was more than likely put there to give a future Supreme Court case the grounds on which to declare slavery to be legal in all states)[[/note]]\\\

The early months of Buchanan's administration also saw what in retrospect is regarded by many as the PointOfNoReturn for the path to the Civil War, namely the ''Dred Scott v. Sandford'' decision. The case revolved around a slave named Dred Scott, who tried suing for his freedom on the grounds that his owner had taken him into a territory where slavery was illegal, meaning he should have been automatically freed. The Supreme Court, in a disastrously misguided attempt to put the abolitionists in their place and settle the issue once and for all, not only refused to grant Scott his freedom, they stripped all African-Americans (not just the ones who were slaves, mind) of their citizenship of the United States, thus preventing slaves from being able to bring lawsuits against their owners in federal courts. On top of that, the ruling retroactively declared the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional and legalized slavery in all the territories, opening up a whole new can of worms as to whether this meant former slaves who had won their freedom in court after being taken a free state could be forced back into slavery (though the question would ultimately never be put to the test before other events rendered it moot). The decision would create far more problems than it solved, infuriating the Northern states to the point where even people who were previously indifferent about slavery began to support its abolition, and while much of the South was happy with the decision, some Southerners merely saw it as the first step to getting slavery legalized throughout the entire United States.[[note]](Indeed, many on both sides were quick to note that a seemingly innocuous part of the ruling -- citing that the government could not free slaves who had been brought into free territories on the grounds that it was depriving citizens of their property without due process of law -- was more than likely put there to give a future Supreme Court case the grounds on which to declare slavery to be legal in all states)[[/note]]\\\

Things really shit the bed after the UsefulNotes/MexicanAmericanWar. The vast new territories acquired from Mexico, most of them south of the Missouri Compromise line, would upset the balance, so that compromise had to be updated. The Compromise of 1850 had a few results. On the free soil side, California was admitted as a free state and slave trading was banned in the District of Columbia. However, the Compromise seemed to favor the slave soil side, with states north of the previously established Missouri Compromise line being granted the right to choose whether they were free or slave by popular sovereignty. It also led to the passing of the infamous "Fugitive Slave Act," which was a revision of a much older law. Before, state authorities in free states were not required to aid in the capture and return of fugitive slaves fleeing the South (with some going so far as to legally declare them free once stepping into territory where slavery was outlawed). This act of defiance had long angered many slave states, who pressured the government into passing a much harsher law that forced all law enforcement officers to aid in capturing fugitive slaves or face heavy fines. The Fugitive Slave Act saw heavy condemnation from northerners, who saw it as a major southern overreach that showed how little the South actually cared about "states' rights" and feared that slavery would soon be permitted in the North. This also resulted in the growth of the Underground Railroad, an organization that helped slaves escape further north to UsefulNotes/{{Canada}}, then still a British colony that had outlawed slavery outright.\\\

The extremely popular novel ''Literature/UncleTomsCabin'' by Northern author Harriet Beecher Stowe helped to expose the conditions of slavery to a wider audience and brought more sympathy to the cause of abolition in the North than ever before. Shortly following this, however, the Supreme Court effectively ruled in the ''Dred Scott v. Sandford'' case that slaves were not citizens and had no right to sue their owners. This invalidated one method for slaves to free themselves, as they often ventured north to free states and sued their masters in that state's courts. This further stoked fears of the idea that slave states would try to expand slavery to the North.\\\

The Bleeding Kansas issue saw the end of the Whig Party, which became bitterly divided over the issue of slavery. From that division rose the Republican Party, which was staunchly anti-slavery and placed opposition to the expansion of slavery on the top of its policy platform. The Republicans rapidly gained support throughout the North, and it soon became feasible that the party could soon win the presidency and majorities in Congress; down the road, this could lead to anti-slavery Supreme Court justices as well. This outcome was abated for 4 more years when Democrat James Buchanan won the 1856 election. Buchanan had what most historians consider to be one of the worst Presidential administrations ever, largely sitting on his hands while the country tore itself apart. His administration saw some infamous events foreshadowing the war to come, such as Representative Preston Brooks (D-SC) brutally beating Senator Charles Sumner (R-MA) in the Senate chamber after Sumner had delivered a speech vilifying slaveholders, including a relative of Brooks.\\\

One reason the "Lost Cause" narrative persisted was because the Union downplayed its opposition to slavery in its own rhetoric, again for pragmatic and political reasons. Even though the CSA seceded due to Lincoln's opposition to slavery, Lincoln at first refused to make freeing the slaves a Union war aim. Doing so would have made the border slave states that stayed with the Union leave, which he had to avoid for propaganda reasons, military strategy (Kentucky and Missouri were very useful) and the very pragmatic reason that Washington, D.C. was surrounded by Virginia (a Confederate state) and Maryland (a border slave state). When the mood was right, he presented the abolition of slavery (but ''only'' in those states which were in rebellion) as a means of critically undermining the rebel war effort. Two years before the Emancipation Proclamation, Benjamin Butler, an Abolitionist RulesLawyer-turned-general, had made his major contribution to the war effort by declaring he claimed three slaves who had been used to dig trenches on the grounds they were "contraband of war", expanded that legal concept to encompass any Southern slave, then emancipated them; since even the most diehard racist and pro-slavery Union supporter could see the logic of seizing rebel slaves, the strategy was so widespread that escaped slaves were (and still are) habitually referred to as contraband. The Emancipation Proclamation merely declared it a universal matter; it was ostensibly written as a war measure that only freed slaves in rebel-held areas, where public opinion didn’t matter much.[[note]]It is a common misconception that the Proclamation didn't free anyone--there was plenty of land in rebelling states held by Union forces, and the arrival of Union troops in any place in the rebelling South meant freedom for the slaves in that area. Moreover, it also meant that any slave who escaped and successfully crossed Confederate lines and met up with Union troops would automatically be considered free-— a ''huge'' incentive for slaves who heard about the Proclamation to run away the minute a Union force came anywhere near them. Furthermore, the Union had good practical reasons to welcome them: for instance, they were often a valuable source of intelligence of the local area.[[/note]] By the end of the war, in part due to the military service of thousands of African Americans in the Union Army, the mood in the North on slavery had shifted enough that Republicans could pass the Thirteenth Amendment, which completely ended the institution.\\\

The American Civil War was (as [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin the name suggests]]) a civil war in the UsefulNotes/UnitedStates fought between northern states ("the Union" or "the North") and southern states that voted to secede and form the Confederate States of America ("the Confederacy" or "the South"). The central cause of the war was the status of slavery. After UsefulNotes/AbrahamLincoln won the 1860 presidential election on an [[SlaveryIsASpecialKindOfEvil anti-slavery]] platform, UsefulNotes/SouthCarolina seceded from the United States in response a month later in December. UsefulNotes/{{Texas}}, UsefulNotes/{{Georgia|USA}}, UsefulNotes/{{Florida}}, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana followed in early 1861, with these seven states forming the Confederate States of America. When President Lincoln called for 75,000 troops after the attack on Fort Sumter, the border states of UsefulNotes/{{Virginia}}, UsefulNotes/{{Tennessee}}, Arkansas, and UsefulNotes/NorthCarolina left the Union in response and joined the Confederacy. From there, events took on a life of their own and the situation devolved into a full-blown war which lasted almost four years.[[note]]The "official" start of the war, the Rebel attack on Fort Sumter, occurred on the night of April 12, 1861; Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. As often happens with civil wars, the "official" dates are somewhat questionable, as the fighting didn't begin in earnest until First Bull Run/Manassas on July 21, 1861, and isolated skirmishes between Union and Confederate units continued well after Lee's surrender, notably including the major battle of Columbus, Georgia, where a confederate soldier named John Pemberton suffered a wound that led to him experimenting with various pain killers, ultimately resulting in the invention of Coca-Cola.[[/note]] The government’s attempts to crush what Abraham Lincoln termed a rebellion[[note]][[InsistentTerminology Rebel sympathizers dispute that term to this day]] [[RulesLawyer on the grounds that the constitution of the USA in its form at the time did not outlaw secession]] (though it didn’t explicitly permit it either). Even these people, however, do not dispute the ''moral'' illegitimacy of forming a country for the express purpose of brutalizing, subjugating, and exploiting other people. Although still denied by a small minority who claim the war was to defend 'states rights' (which they [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugitive_slave_laws_in_the_United_States#1850_Fugitive_Slave_Act actually happily trampled]]), or was even started by the North for economic reasons [[ArtisticLicenseHistory (even though the South fired the first shots)]] most secessionist states [[http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/primarysources/declarationofcauses.html declared at least indirectly that the maintenance of slavery was a reason for them declaring independence in their actual declarations of independence]].[[/note]] eventually resulted in the defeat of the confederation, the abolition of chattel slavery, and the eventual reintegration of the seceded states into the Union.

The pitiful US Army only numbered about 16,000 men at the time, so calls for volunteers came from both Abraham Lincoln in the North and Jefferson Davis in the South. The first calls for volunteers attracted many thousands of men. Although most Americans still remained largely divided on the issue of slavery (especially in the more western states), they generally could find agreement on the issue of secession, with the Union sympathizers saying that it was illegal, and the Confederate sympathizers saying it was the right of a state to secede.[[note]]While many scholars today side with the Unionists, there is still some discussion on this point; the Tenth Amendment to the US Constitution seemed to leave the question open, and the Supreme Court decision in Texas v White did not come till four years after the war. Such discussion is entirely academic, of course, as now secession is unquestionably illegal.[[/note]] Many southern officers, such as Robert E. Lee, chose loyalty to their home states over loyalty to the federal government.\\\

The Union scored more victories, advancing into Confederate territory. In the West, they had successfully captured the city of New Orleans, which controlled the mouth of the Mississippi River. The Union launched an assault on Richmond, landing the Army of the Potomac southeast of the capital. "Stonewall" Jackson and [[UsefulNotes/RobertELee Robert E. Lee]] managed to halt the advance of the Army of the Potomac in a series of battles,[[note]]despite taking heavy losses and losing most of the battles, the Union general [=McClellan=] decided to withdraw from the area[[/note]] thus saving the capital. Afterwards, Lee maneuvered north to push the Union out of Northern Virginia. This resulted in the Second Battle of Bull Run, which had again proved to be a decisive victory for the Confederacy. As a result, the Confederates regained control of Northern Virginia and pushed into Maryland.\\\

The Union scored more victories, advancing into Confederate territory. In the West, they had successfully captured the city of New Orleans, which controlled the mouth of the Mississippi River. The Union launched an assault on Richmond, landing the Army of the Potomac southeast of the capital. "Stonewall" Jackson and Robert E. Lee managed to halt the advance of the Army of the Potomac in a series of battles,[[note]]despite taking heavy losses and losing most of the battles, the Union general [=McClellan=] decided to withdraw from the area[[/note]] thus saving the capital. Afterwards, Lee maneuvered north to push the Union out of Northern Virginia. This resulted in the Second Battle of Bull Run, which had again proved to be a decisive victory for the Confederacy. As a result, the Confederates regained control of Northern Virginia and pushed into Maryland.\\\

* ''A Rebel in Time'' by Creator/HarryHarrison is a time-travel story in which a racist colonel tries to bring [[CoolGuns/SubmachineGuns Sten guns]] (UsefulNotes/WorldWar2 submachine guns of a construction simple enough to be produced with 1860s technology) to the Confederacy. He is pursued by a black time-traveller who then has to see that history stays on course despite being hampered by 1860s racial prejudices. (In case you're wondering, it was published nine years before ''Guns of the South'').

** The first ''Civil War — A Nation Divided'', is an Activision first person shooter set in the Civil War, where players can choose to play on either side in many major battles. Being a first person shooter, RareGuns had to be invoked to make the more rapid-fire guns of the era more common than they actually were in real life. Reloading sequences were also abbreviated[[note]]The revolvers skip adding precussion caps, for one, which would make them unable to fire in real life.[[/note]] to speed them up a bit. Reviews were mostly mixed.

Both of these compromises seemed to quell things, but only temporarily. As the United States grew and more states were accepted into the Union, tensions flared up again. With the acquisition of the Louisiana Territory from France in 1803, the United States nearly doubled in size. These new lands were gradually settled and admitted statehood. With the northern states having already outlawed slavery, many of the new states admitted to the Union in the Midwestern Territory would also become "free states" upon admittance to the Union. Not all new states went this route, however, and by 1819 the United States was divided straight down the middle, with 11 free states and 11 slave states.[[labelnote:Significance]]The number of states is important due to the structure of the legislative branch of the [[UsefulNotes/AmericanPoliticalSystem US federal government]], i.e. the US Congress: Congress is bicameral (has two "houses"). The representation of each state in the "lower house" of Congress, the House of Representatives, is according to the population of each state, but in the "upper house," the Senate, each state has exactly two members (no matter how heavily or sparsely populated). The setup for the Senate made it impossible for any laws to be made regulating or banning slavery despite the fact that twice as many people lived in "free" as in "slave" states. Moreover, any changes to the federal constitution (e.g. to outlaw owning people as property) required two-thirds or more of both houses to propose an amendment and ratification by three-fourths of the ''state legislatures'' to approve it.[[/labelnote]] It was a delicate balance, as the southerners feared that a majority of free states would hand the senate over to abolitionists, who would abolish slavery wholesale. Northerners feared the opposite, that slavery would be expanded even further. The fears of both sides were not especially warranted, as abolition still wasn't a serious movement as of yet, and the slave states had no pretensions of extending slavery back into the North. However, the admittance of the new state of Missouri worried both sides. In the end, another compromise was worked out where Maine (part of Massachusetts at the time) was admitted as a free state, Missouri as a slave state, and all territory south of Missouri, state or not, would allow slavery while all territory north of Missouri's southern border would be free soil, barring Missouri itself, of course. The compromise kept the Union from imploding for a few more decades, but it couldn't last.\\\

Almost every student of American history considers this to be ''the'' seminal event in the history of the United States: while UsefulNotes/TheAmericanRevolution was the war that founded the country, this one was what tested whether or not the initial experiment of its existence had succeeded. It was predicted as far back as the Declaration of Independence and has influenced the country's domestic politics well into the 21st century. As a result of all this, the American Civil War is one of the most thoroughly studied and documented periods in US history: studying the full extent of the causes, events, and effects of the war has kept scholars busy filling bookshelves, creating documentaries, and consulting on films for well over a century and a half. Below is our best attempt at an abridged summation.