The American Civil War: Causes, Course, and Consequences

The American civil war was a war between the Union, the northern states, and the Confederation, the southern states, and it began on April 12th 1861 and ended on April 9th 1865 with Confederation general Lees surrendering to Union troops. The civil war started because of the politically disagreements about slavery between the northern and southern states. The people to the north would not accept the use of slaves in the south. There were many slaves, especially in the southern cotton fields, whom by and large all came from Africa or was descendant of the first slaves from Africa.

After the bloody civil war - which led to the death of more than 620,000 young Americans - the Union stood victorious if one could call it so. The outcome was the freedom of slaves in the United States of America, who - as before the civil war - stood united.

There had for a long period of time been disagreement on the subject of slavery, but the situation first escalated with the instalment of Abraham Lincoln as the 16th president of the United States of America on March 4th 1861. He was against slavery, and his instalment as president only added more fuel to an already burning fire. After his election in November the previous year a number of states to the south backed out of the Union with South Carolina as leading state. They established the Confederation on February 7th 1861. The Confederation was the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North and South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia. Jefferson Davies from South Carolina was selected president of the Confederation.