​

Of all the wars in American history, none has been as costly in terms of lives and enduring wounds of our national psyche as the Civil War. Pitting brother against brother, this tragic war tore our nation apart during the years 1861 to 1865. 

 

As the Founding Fathers had feared, the issue of slavery which had been pushed aside by compromises since the first Continental Congress, the depravity of slavery left a scar that had not healed and would fester into four years of bloodshed pitting North against South.

 

Abraham Lincoln’s promise during the election of 1860 to prohibit slavery in the new western territories was the spark that reignited the issue of a state’s rights in general and the growing cry to abolish slavery forever. 

 

Seven states stood together to form the Confederacy on February 8, 1861, a month before Lincoln would assume the office of the Presidency in March. Five more states seceded and joined the Confederacy to preserve their perceived right to continue the long-established plantation system of enforced and sanctioned slavery.

 

From the initial attack by the Confederate troops on Fort Sumter in Charleston’s harbor until General Robert E. Lee would surrender to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox nearly four years later, the War Between the States ended the lives of somewhere between 620,000–850,000 soldiers.

​

​

​

​

​