The American Civil War

Soldiers of the American Civil War were overwhelmed by a time where weaponry and technological developments were thriving. This brutal war changed the soldiers, both mentally and physically, and continued to have an impact throughout their entire lives. There were not only many deaths during the war, but also prior to the war as many soldiers took their own life. They would experience disturbing thoughts and events in their mind that could not be explained until they became known as mental illnesses. The exploration of psychological disorders following the Civil War improved medical diagnostic tools and the way patients were treated which transformed the treatment of mental illness by creating new ways of discovering illnesses, treating patients, and developing the foundation for the future of psychology throughout America.

A Civil War is a battle between the same citizens in a country. The American Civil War was fought from 1861 to 1865 to determine the independence for the Confederacy or the survival of the Union. By the time Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1861, in the mist of 34 states, the constant disagreement caused seven Southern slave states to their independence from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America. The Confederacy, generally known as the South, grew to include eleven states. The states that remained devoted to the US were known as the Union or the North. The number one question that is never completely understood about the Civil War is what caused the war. There were multiple events that led to the groundbreaking, bloody, and political war.

Abraham Lincoln once stated “America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.” Abraham Lincoln is a hero for the citizens of America because his determination and courage to ending slavery even if it meant war caused peace in this nation. Slavery was the vital cause of the American Civil War. The north and the south both had their differences on how to run the country. People in the North believed in unity and that slavery should not exist because “all men are created equally.” On the other hand, the South believed in continuing slavery. People tried to talk it out and come to a middle ground after both sides compromising, however that didn’t work and caused war. Ideological differences were a vital role to making the American Civil War an inevitable event.

The war produced about 1,030,000 casualties, including about 620,000 soldier deaths—two-thirds by disease, and 50,000 civilians. The war accounted for roughly as many American deaths as all American deaths in other U.S. wars combined.

When the American Civil War began in the spring of 1861, those flocking to enlistment stations in states both north and south chiefly defined their cause as one of preservation. From Maine to Minnesota, young men joined up to preserve the Union. From Virginia to Texas, their future foes on the battlefield enlisted to preserve a social order, a social order at its core built on the institution of slavery and racial superiority . Secession had not been framed by prominent Southerners like Robert Toombs as a defensive measure to retain the fruits of the revolution against King George, a fight against those who sought to “intrique insurrection with all its nameless horrors.” (Toombs Speech) On January 1, 1863, when Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation went into effect the war became a revolution. The Union, the soldiers in blue fought to preserve could no longer exist. On every mile of soil, they would return to the Stars and Stripes from that moment on, the fabric of society would be irrevocably changed. In May of 1865, with the abolition of slavery engrained into the Constitution with the passage of the 13th Amendment, the Confederate armies of Lee and Johnston disbanded, and Lincoln dead of an assassin’s bullet; this change was the only certainty the torn fabric of the newly reunited states was left to be resown. Andrew Johnson and Southern Democrats believed the revolution of 1863 had gone far enough. Radical Republicans and African-Americans sought instead to bring it to

During the 1860s there were many issues and that the Southern and Northern states needed to work on. In 1861 hundreds of thousands of Americans volunteered to fight in the Civil War, also known as the First Modern War. The main causes of this war were the economic and social differences between the North and the South. These differences led to other fundamental issues such as slavery and its abolition. In addition to that as the war was coming to its end, federal authorities found themselves presiding over the transition from slavery to freedom.After the war, there was a 12-year period best known as the Reconstruction and the main goals that it had were to get the Confederate States back into the Union, to rebuilt the Southern economy

In the 1800s the Civil War, a war between the northern and southern states, erupted into a massive conflict after President Lincoln was elected and after eleven states seceded from the Union. Following the secession from the Union, The Ft. Sumer conflict erupted, and this four-year tragedy between the northern and southern United States began causing an innumerable amount of casualties. This immense number of casualties, reaching approximately 600,000, resulted from economic and social differences of the North and South, the Dred Scott Case, and the election of President Abraham Lincoln. These causes of the Civil War were all created on conflict rather than intervention. They led to the creation of the Confederacy, a league of confederate states that embodied various disadvantages: the creation of weapons manually, the lack of railroads, the small population, as well as various advantages: tough fighting, devastating the Union 's army and unity that brought people of the Southern states together. Alongside these advantages came devastation, when Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed slaves, and led to the Confederacy 's defeat in 1865.

president after Lincoln 's death and immediately set the tone for the rest of his

It is quite obvious that there were many goals to achieve during the Civil War. But discovering the true meaning and vision of the Civil War is the concept that is still researched today by the people of America. In the prologue of Blight’s Race and Reunion he states: (Three overall visions of the Civil War memory collided and combined over time: one, the reconciliationist vision … two, the white supremacist vision … and three, the emancipationist vision…) All three of these visions are extremely important, however, I mainly want to stress the importance of the white supremacist vision and the emancipationist vision. An obvious form of the change for the meaning of the Civil War through the period of Reconstruction is through the eyes of emancipationists. Emancipationist’s visions are mainly seen through African American’s eyes as they remember their freedom through the Civil War and Reconstruction. They see the Civil War as a new construction for the liberation of blacks through citizenship and Constitutional equality. It seems quite obvious that the Blacks did indeed earn more rights as Reconstruction progressed but, there were disagreements of the rights for Blacks. The white supremacist vision did not want the Civil War to be seen as a war fought for the freedom of Blacks and Blacks rights. They wanted the Civil War to be envisioned as a defense of Southern rights as their “property” (slaves) was soon to be taken. Both of these ideas and interpretations still live on in

In the year 1864 the American Civil War was drawing to an end. The Confederate States of America was slowly running out of able bodied men and supplies to supply the army needed to ward off the Union’s invasion of the South. At this point in time the leader of the Union Army was Ulysses S. Grant. He devised a plan to escalate the process in which the Confederate Army was running out of supplies. Grant’s plan was to send Union troops to the West of the main conflict for them to loop around and cut off railroad lines, and burn farm lands. The greatest of these was the Army that burned thousands of acres in Georgia, yet another army led by General David Hunter might have been more decisive if it had not been stopped at the Battle of Lynchburg. General David Hunter was ordered by General Grant to make his way down the Shenandoah Valley and destroy as much farm land as possible along the way. On top of this General Hunter terrorized towns by pillaging stores and homes. The Southerners knew that a similar fate would become Lynchburg if they did not do anything to prevent Hunter’s advance. The people of Lynchburg worked hard at building up defenses protecting Lynchburg. They had to resort to using mostly young boys and elderly men since most able bodies men had already died in the War or were still fighting under General E. Lee. The boys and elderly men that maned the defenses did not have a good chance of warding of the large army led by General David Hunter; as a result, General

In the early mid nineteen century United States began to split, people’s views started to become more concrete and irreconcilable, thus the separation of the Union became more drastic. From 1850 to 1861 it was apparent that the union was separating into North and the South. They both developed different patterns of life and philosophies of government. Increase in population due to immigration and territorial expansion caused growth and change. Several reform movements attempted to correct the injustices and bring the United States back together, but sectional differences formed, leading to a Civil War. There were several events that took place within the fifteen years leading up to the Civil War, however, in the end, the sectional differences

Guns fired, smoke lingering in the air, people dying. The American Civil War had a huge impact on the United States. Two compromises took place before the start of the Civil War. These compromises include the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850. The Missouri Compromise dealt with the crisis in 1819 over Missouri entering the Union as a slave state. The compromise was “the first major crisis over slavery, and it shattered a tacit agreement between the two regions that had been in place since the constitution. Under the terms of the agreement, the North would not interfere with slavery in the Southern States, and the South would recognize slavery as an evil that should be discouraged and eventually abolished whenever it was safe and feasible to do so” (Stauffer). The compromise showed the belief that was shared by most of the Founding Fathers and the framers of the Constitution: that slavery was wrong. Thirty-one years later, the Compromise of 1850 was created. This compromise “consisted of five basic parts, the most onerous of which was a stringent fugitive slave law that denied suspected fugitives the right to a jury by trial and virtually legislated slave stealing.The Fugitive Slave law converted countless northerners to the antislavery cause” (Stauffer). Although the Fugitive Slave law, one of the five parts of the Compromise of 1850, caused many northerners to start believing the antislavery cause, the compromise itself achieved the opposite of its intentions.

The great American Civil War changed and shaped America back in the late 1800s and early 1900s, but little do we know it still has a lasting effect on us today. The Civil War was so devastating back in the 1860s that it helped to develop many new technologies, ideals, and culture. Some of the effects still hang on around us today, and may even influence your everyday life without you even knowing it.

In 1861, a horrific war began. Nobody had any idea that this war would become the deadliest war in American history. It wasn’t a regular war, it was a civil war opposing the Union in the North and the Confederate States in the South.. The Civil War cost many people’s lives on the battlefield and beyond. In addition it cost an extreme amount of money for the nation which possibly could have been avoided if the war had turned to happen a little differently.

Sectional conflict between the North and South was the very platform of the birth of the Civil War. Slavery was a prominent dispute that played a large role in the differences throughout the U.S. at this time, but there were other causes as well including economic and social differences and the election of Abraham Lincoln. In the midst of various events in the 1850s, it was the southern secession that began the true separation of the Union and the Confederacy, which showed the reality and quickness of the arrival of the Civil War in the United States.