American Civil War

The American Civil War was fought from 1861 to 1865 between the United States and the Confederacy, formed by seceding Southern states. Slavery was central to secession and the conflict.

Secession: The withdrawal of a political unit from a larger state or union. Southern secession created the Confederacy and precipitated the crisis that became war.
Slavery in the United States: A system of forced labor in which people of African descent were held as property under U.S. law. The protection and expansion of slavery drove Southern secession and shaped the war's stakes.
Abraham Lincoln: The 16th president of the United States, who led the Union during the Civil War and issued the Emancipation Proclamation. His leadership held the Union together and transformed the war's stated purpose.
Battle of Antietam: An 1862 battle in Maryland that ended Robert E. Lee's first invasion of the North. Its Union outcome gave Lincoln the opening to announce the Emancipation Proclamation.
Thirteenth Amendment: The 1865 amendment to the U.S. Constitution that abolished slavery, except as punishment for crime. It made emancipation nationwide and permanent in constitutional law.
Confederate States of America: The government formed in 1861 by eleven Southern states that seceded from the United States. It organized the states that fought the Union as a separate country.
Missouri Compromise: An 1820 agreement admitting Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state while restricting slavery in parts of the Louisiana Purchase. It exposed how territorial expansion repeatedly destabilized the balance between slave and free states.
Jefferson Davis: The president of the Confederate States of America from 1861 until its defeat in 1865. He led the Confederate government and oversaw its wartime political and military effort.
Battle of Gettysburg: A three-day 1863 battle in Pennsylvania that ended Lee's second invasion of the North. The Confederate defeat halted a major offensive and became a turning point in the Eastern theater.
Reconstruction: The period after the Civil War when the United States rebuilt the South and contested the rights of formerly enslaved people. It carried the war's unresolved questions into a struggle over political power and citizenship.

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