G08: American Civil War: Civil War

The Civil War in the United States began in 1861, after decades of simmering tensions between northern and southern states over slavery, states’ rights and westward expansion. The election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 caused seven southern states to secede and form the Confederate States of America; four more states soon joined them. The War Between the States, as the Civil War was also known, ended in Confederate surrender in 1865.

Explore 10 surprising Civil War facts, brought to you by the authors of "The Seven-Day Scholar: The Civil War."

Civil War culture in America–both North and South–was greatly distinct from life in the antebellum years. As the war dragged on, the soldier’s life was one of near-constant hardship and deprivation, from substandard clothing and equipment to barely edible and usually insufficient rations.

The Civil War was a time of great social and political upheaval. It was also a time of great technological change. Inventors and military men devised new types of weapons, such as the repeating rifle and the submarine, that forever changed the way that wars were fought.

Musket, bayonets and cannons weren’t the only deadly weapons to haunt the battlefields of the 1860s.

During the American Civil War, groups of so-called “partisan rangers” engaged in bloody campaigns of guerilla attacks, raiding and psychological warfare against rival military units and civilians.

Robert E. Lee’s surrender did not officially end the Civil War. Find out where the fighting continued in the weeks after Appomattox.

Learn the unusual stories behind six Civil War-era Southern territories where Unionist sentiment was most widespread.

Find out more about Rose O'Neal Greenhow and three other female informants who played a significant role in America’s bloodiest conflict.

In many ways, the coming of the Civil War challenged the ideology of Victorian domesticity that had defined the lives of men and women in the antebellum era. In the North and in the South, the war forced women into public life in ways they could scarcely have imagined a generation before.

Whether as soldiers, spies, recruiters or medical personnel, African Americans made crucial contributions to the Union cause.