American Civil War

American Civil War
Top left: William Rosecrans at Stones River, Tennessee; top right: Confederate prisoners at Gettysburg; bottom: Battle of Fort Hindman, Arkansas
Date April 12, 1861 – May 9, 1865 Location United States, Atlantic Ocean Result The Union won. The United States of America stays together Reconstruction Slavery abolished
Belligerents
United States of America	Confederate States
Commanders and leaders
Abraham Lincoln Ulysses S. Grant George B. McClellan William T. Sherman Winfield Scott Henry Halleck George G. Meade Joseph Hooker Benjamin F. Butler Philip Sheridan William Rosecrans George H. Thomas John Pope Edward Canby Nathaniel P. Banks	Jefferson Davis Robert E. Lee Joseph E. Johnston P. G. T. Beauregard A.S. Johnston Samuel Cooper Braxton Bragg John Bell Hood Stonewall Jackson J.E.B. Stuart Jubal Early James Longstreet Edmund K. Smith John C. Pemberton Richard Taylor
Strength
2,100,000	1,064,000
Casualties and losses
140,414 killed in action[1] ~ 365,000 total dead[1] 275,200 wounded	72,524 killed in action[1] ~ 260,000 total dead 137,000+ wounded

The American Civil War (1861–1865) was a civil war in the United States of America. It was fought when 11 Southern states left the United States and formed the Confederate States of America (also called the Confederacy). The US government and the states that remained loyal to it were called the Union.

The main cause of the war was slavery, which was allowed in the South, including all 11 Confederate States. Slavery was illegal in most of the North. The Confederate States tried to leave the Union after Abraham Lincoln, who disliked slavery, was elected US president. The Union believed that it was illegal for the states to break away. There were five states that allowed slavery which stayed in the Union.

The war began on April 12, 1861, when Confederate forces attacked Fort Sumter, a fort in South Carolina that was held by Union soldiers.^[2] The war lasted four years and caused much damage in the South. Most battles were in northern states until 1862 and in southern states after 1862.

After four years of fighting, the Union won the war, and soon, slavery was made illegal everywhere in the United States of America.

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2} John W. Chambers, II, ed. in chief, The Oxford Companion to American Military History. Oxford University Press, 1999, ISBN 978-0-19-507198-6. P. 849.
2. ↑ "Fort Sumter". Civil War Trust. Retrieved October 20, 2015.