The American Civil War

1128 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Political causes of civil war

There were many aspects of the Civil War, some were big and some were small but all were significant for the history of Union. Many people were involved in this great war, many of those people died. The great cause that all of these men were fighting for was to “save the union”, as Abraham Lincoln said in 1862. There was no interfering with the states that were free and the states that were slave states all he wanted to do was persuade the rebellious states that the Union was good and convince them to stay (Kennedy p 304).
Both sides had many advantages they also had many disadvantages. The North was twice the population of the South. They were a grown industrial base, which had coal mining and iron production in Pennsylvania. They had a better transportation network, as well as a bigger and larger Navy. They also were one step ahead with the National Currency and Banking System. The South had some big advantages including: fighting on their own soil, a large percent of the men fighting were white, and they were fighting a defensive war which meant they did not have to conquer any territory (“American Civil War”)
The Civil War was a very trying time that was fought in 10,000 places from Valverde, New Mexico and Tullahoma, Tennessee to St. Albans, Vermont and Fernandina on the Florida coast. Over 3 million American men fought in this monumental war and 600,000 of those men died. The homes of Americans became headquarters for the army, churches and schoolhouses sheltered the dying and sick. Moving armies moved throughout America ruining farms and burning the towns they went through. To them it was not a big deal to slaughter their fellow Americans; they would just do it and move on (Burns).
The first event to occur was the ending ...

... middle of paper ...

...slaves were owned by the southern white men and were only able to do as their owners told them. By the end of the war slaves were set free to do as they please and live as other citizens of America. Even though we lost a great President because of the cause he supported, it was not in shame that blacks walked away from the white owners.

Works Cited

Burns, Ken. "The Civil War." PBS. PBS, 2002. Web. 24 Apr. 2014.

"American Civil War." History.com. A&E Television Networks, 2014. Web. 22 Apr. 2014.

Kennedy, David M., and David M. Kennedy. The Brief American Pageant: A History of the Republic. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000. Print.

""The First General Order Issued by the Father of His Country after the Declaration of Independence Indicates the Spirit in Which Our Institutions Were Founded and Should Ever Be Defended."" Civil War. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2014.

.

Show More
Related

  • The Home Front Effect in The American Civil War

    970 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Civil War was unlike any other war ever fought in America and had many effects on the home front for both the North and the South. It is stated to be the first ever total war, which is a war against not only the civilians but also the armies. The Civil War is also considered the first modern war fought by the U.S. troops. Lincoln asked volunteers to sign up for only three months. Many people thought the war wouldn’t last long. However, the war continued on for four years. The Union armies had around 2,500,000 to 2,750,000 men and the Confederate army had approximately 750,000 to 1,250,000 men. The entire North and South society was affected by the war and desired for many social and economic assets. The Civil war brought new military techniques which caused the armaments to be more destructive. Ironclad ships and railroads were sufficiently used within the war. The north had a motive; they wanted to weaken the South’s longing to victory. The North tried to achieve this last motive by inflicting wholesale destruction upon the South (Janda, 1995). More than a hundred people seemed to be spies or secessionists in Maryland. In time, they were arrested due to not being faithful to the union and their state. Pro-secessionist newspapers were shut down, and telegrams and mail were censored (Perret, 2004).

    Read More

  • Civil War Diary Of Cyrus F. Boyd

    1155 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Civil War had a very large affect on all of the States. It changed men from gentlemen that went to church every Sunday and never cussed to people who rarely went to church and cussed all the time. Some of the people in the war were also very corrupt and did not do things as they should be done. The way that the enemy was looked at was even changed. All of these things were talked about in "The Civil War Diary of Cyrus F. Boyd".

    Read More

  • Summary: Why The North Won The Civil War

    999 Words  | 2 Pages

    The North entered the Civil War with many distinct assets that rendered them more competent than the Southern states. Those assets consisted of having more men, more financial stability, economic strength, and far reaching transportation systems. According to the book: Why the North Won the Civil War by Donald, David Herbert, and Richard Nelson the primary cause to the North’s success was given by, “the vast superiority of the North in men and materials, in instruments of production, in communication facilities, in business organization and skill – and assuming for the sake of the argument no more than rough quality in statecraft and generalship – the final outcome seems all but inevitable.” In many ways the north, during the Civil, was more economically dominant than the South

    Read More

  • Why the North Won the American Civil War

    1271 Words  | 3 Pages

    The advantages of the Union going into the war are numerous. The system of government had long been established in the North and along with that came the benefits of a treasury and a prepared army and navy. The South had no preexisting system of government or infrastructure prior to the war. While the North was preparing to fight, the South faced the issue of jumpstarting a nation. They were charged with creating institutions and a culture separate from the North that did not rely on slavery as its center. That is, it was not enough for the Confederacy to merely be the Union with slavery; they needed to create a sense of nationalism through an autonomous and cohesive Southern identity. The war effort united Southerners under a unity of purpose in the early days of fighting, but after 1863, as the war waged on and years passed, Southerners began to lose faith in the Confederacy (Perman, 229).

    Read More

  • What Caused The Civil War Dbq

    554 Words  | 2 Pages

    When the war began and the union blockaded all their ports the south was out of luck. They had very little industrial workers and manufactured goods compared to the north so during the blockade they could not make their own weapons or food other than corn. (Doc 2) The north had the advantage because they supplied the south with a lot of important items such as cotton-mills and steamships. (Doc 3) They also had better means of transportation. The north had better boats because they had factories equipped to make them and they also had more railroads to transfer weapons and equipment to soldiers. (Doc 1) The north was meant to win from the beginning and even though it took longer than expected they still beat the south and defeated slavery. No one document will tell you that slavery caused the Civil War, but if it had not been for slavery the war would have never

    Read More

  • The Sectionalism of the 19th Century

    1108 Words  | 3 Pages

    Brinkley, Alan. The Unfinished Nation: A Concise History of the American People. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2010. Print.

    Read More

  • Northern Advantages Of The American Civil War

    974 Words  | 2 Pages

    Northern Advantages of the Civil War Some people thought that the winner of the Civil War was determined by the side with the most guns, but the North's victory involved much more. The Civil War produced new technological advances and Lincoln used them to his advantage. One example is how he used trains and the telegraph to help him win the war.

    Read More

  • Why The North Won the Civil War

    1524 Words  | 4 Pages

    The North was just simply better at maintaining the two most important elements to win a war: men and weapons. They did not have better tactics or leadership, they just had more men. Therefore, the North won the American Civil War due to their possession of greater manpower and resources although the South maintained more stable and efficient military leaders and strategies.

    Read More

  • Why The North Won The Civil War

    1337 Words  | 3 Pages

    The North was just simply better at maintaining the two most important elements to win a war: men and weapons. They did not have better tactics or leadership, they just had more men. Therefore, the North won the American Civil War due to their possession of greater manpower and resources although the South maintained more stable and efficient military leaders and strategies.

    Read More

  • Causes of the American Civil War

    1127 Words  | 3 Pages

    For generations students have been taught an over-simplified version of the civil war and even now I am just coming to a full understanding of the truth. The civil war was a terrible rift in our nation, fought between the northern states (known as the union) and the southern states (the Confederate States of America). The people’s opinions were so divided over the issues of the civil war that, in some families, brother was pit against brother. Eventually, the south succumbed to the north and surrendered on April 9th, 1865 but not before the war had caused 618,000 deaths, more than any other war in U.S. history.(1) In truth, many believe this horrible war was fought purely over the issue of slavery. Nothing could be further from the truth. I am not denying that slavery was a major cause and issue of the civil war, but social and economic differences as well as states’ rights were just as important issues and I will be discussing all three.

    Read More

  • The American Civil War

    575 Words  | 2 Pages

    Following the American Civil War, the whole nation was forever changed and was the result of many good and bad things. Although it was a very costly war and was So, the Civil War did define us and made us the good and the bad things we are and led to an extremely significant change because slavery was abolished once and for all and African American rights followed many years later, the Federal Government imposed more power over the states, our country was divided for a while, and it left the nation in debt due to the fact that we fought each other.

    Read More

  • Impact Of The Civil War On American History

    1141 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Civil War was an important war over the freedom of slaves in the U.S.. The Civil War is well known for being caused by the issue of slavery, but it is really a combination of different events and actions that caused tensions to rise throughout the country. The economic and political issues in the U.S., along with certain actions caused the Civil war, which is one of the United States’s worst wars. All in all, the Civil War was one of the most devastating wars for our country as a whole, and the process of rebuilding would take years and is no easy job.

    Read More

  • The American Civil War

    755 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Civil War determined what kind of nation the United States would become. It determined whether it would be a nation with equal rights for everyone or the biggest country that still abused of slaves. The war started because of the brutal conditions slaves were living in. Many had no education what so ever and were treated worse than animals. Back then part of this country found this acceptable and demanded to keep their slaves while the others demanded freedom. Today there are many movies about the civil war. For example the movie Glory which was made in December 15, 1989 it was directed by Edward Zwick. The movie depicts the lives of African American soldiers who had to endure tougher training than the American man, and American officials who had to make these men into real action fighting soldiers. The defining characters in this movie were. Major Cabot Forbes who was very tender towards the African American soldiers and he even stood up for them. Private Trip gave up his freedom in order to fight is true fighter. Corporal Thomas Searles who struggled a lot in the training camp but in the end pulled through. Glory is mainly about men with struggles that have to overcome their torments in order to end the Civil War. It took time and strength but the colored regiment became just as good as any white one. Corporal Thomas Searles, Major Cabot Forbes, and Private Trip all fought for what they believed in even at the time of their last breathes something they would have never done at the beginning of the movie.

    Read More

  • Blacks in Civil War Portrayed in The Movie Glory

    1297 Words  | 3 Pages

    The American Civil War was a major war in the United States between the Union and eleven Southern states which declared that they had a right to secession and formed the Confederate States of America. They were led by Jefferson Davis who was elected as their president. The Union, led by President Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party, opposed the expansion of slavery into territories owned by the United States and rejected any right of secession. The United States Civil War began as an effort to save the Union but it ended in a fight to abolish slavery. Tens of thousands of soldiers on each side, in battle after battle, had the courage to march in regular order against the withering fire of the defenders, while those around them fell with hideous and usually fatal wounds for many different reasons. Southerners fought for their rights and their way of life. Blacks for on another and for the end of slavery. Northerners fought to keep the Union together and latter on the end of slavery. Blacks fought for Religion, to demonstrate to all that blacks are just as capable as whites in battle and to show Gods righteousness.

    Read More

  • The American Civil War

    1805 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Civil War has been viewed as the unavoidable eruption of a conflict that had been simmering for decades between the industrial North and the agricultural South. Roark et al. (p. 507) speak of the two regions’ respective “labor systems,” which in the eyes of both contemporaries were the most salient evidence of two irreconcilable worldviews. Yet the economies of the two regions were complementary to some extent, in terms of the exchange of goods and capital; the Civil War did not arise because of economic competition between the North and South over markets, for instance. The collision course that led to the Civil War did not have its basis in pure economics as much as in the perceptions of Northerners and Southerners of the economies of the respective regions in political and social terms. The first lens for this was what I call the nation’s ‘charter’—the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, the documents spelling out the nation’s core ideology. Despite their inconsistencies, they provided a standard against which the treatment and experience of any or all groups of people residing within the United States could be evaluated (Native Americans, however, did not count). Secondly, these documents had installed a form of government that to a significant degree promised representation of each individual citizen. It was understood that this only possible through aggregation, and so population would be a major source of political power in the United States. This is where economics intersected with politics: the economic system of the North encouraged (albeit for the purposes of exploitation) immigration, whereas that of the South did not. Another layer of the influence of economics in politics was that the prosperity of ...

    Read More

More about The American Civil War

Open Document