Civil War Essay -- essays research papers

Civil War Civil war was the greatest war in American history. It was waged in 10,000 places-from Valverde, New Mexico, and Fernandina on the Florida coast. More than three million Americans fought in it and more than 600,00 men died in it. It was not only the immensity of the fight but the new weapons, the new standards of generalship, and the strategies of destruction which made the Civil War an event present ever since in the American consciousness. Here are some of the crucial events of the war: the firing of the first shots at Fort Sumter; the battles of Shiloh, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg; Sherman's dramatic march to the sea; the surrender at Appomattox. In fact, Civil War wasn't simply the story of great battles and great generals, it was also an elaborate portrait of ourselves, American people- individuals and families, northerners and southerners, soldiers and civilians, slaves and slaveowners, rich and poor, urban and rural. Twenty years before Civil War started, South and North didn't have a good relationship already and there were many issues that they didn't agree on each other such as Clay's compromise, Fugitive slave act, Pottawatomie massacre, etc. The Southern states supported slavery because the slave population held more than 40 percent of the entire population and also they needed slavery for their industrialization. Therefore, if they freed all the slaves, someone would predict, many whites would have no jobs and many things would be up-side-down. As the result, controlling over slaves was very important for the Southern. But the Northern were opponent of slavery since the slavery population took less than 10 percent of the entire population and Southern states were already free. Then something really happened when Abraham Lincoln, a known opponent of slavery, was elected president. The Southern states then decided to secede, which meant that they were leaving the nation because they thought how could Lincoln be the president of the United States if most of the Southern didn't vote for him. Now, as we could see, our nation started to divide into two, the south and the north. During the year of 1861 to 1865, there were thousands of war between south and north and there were countless people died in it. The war immediately began when south and north fought for Fort Sumter. At Lincoln's inaug... ...enges of Reconstruction and of defining African Americans' rights. Therefore, many Moderate Republican, who made up the majority of the Republican party, angry because his failure to protect African American's rights. After congress took over the reconstruction from Johnson, they quickly passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which declared that everyone who was born in the land of United States was a citizen with full civil right, (not guarantee for voting rights). Then Fourteenth Amendment was also passed in June 1866. It required states to extend equal citizenship to African Americans and all people were born naturalized in the United States.) Then Fifteenth Amendment was passed at the following year, it pointed out that everyone should have rights of vote no matter what color the people were. Many African American children started to go to school and being educated just like everyone else. Many African Americans involves politics and protect their own rights. As we knew, countless people didn't have jobs and started die from hunger, therefore, Industrialization was needed so that those people could have jobs. Many Southern landowners turned into factory owners.