The Civil War

485 Words1 Page

The Civil War The Civil War started on April 12, 1861. It was a military conflict between the United States of America, which was known as the union and the Confederate States of America know as the Confederacy. It began on April 12, 1861, when Confederate forces opened fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina, and lasted until May 26, 1865, when the last Confederate army surrendered. The war took more than 600,000 lives, destroyed five billion dollars worth of property and brought freedom to 4 million black slaves. The main cause of the war was slavery. Southern states depended on slavery to support their agricultural economy. Only a small amount of Northerners were against slavery. However, they were opposed to its expansion, in part because they did not want to compete against slave labor. The main debate centered on whether slavery should be allowed in the Western territories, recently acquired during the Mexican War, which lasted from 1846-1848. The North and the South had developed into two very different regions by 1860. The North was firmly estab...

Open Document