essay about the american civil war

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By: History.com Editors

Updated: April 20, 2023 | Original: October 15, 2009

The Civil War in the United States began in 1861, after decades of simmering tensions between northern and southern states over slavery, states’ rights and westward expansion. The election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 caused seven southern states to secede and form the Confederate States of America; four more states soon joined them. The War Between the States, as the Civil War was also known, ended in Confederate surrender in 1865. The conflict was the costliest and deadliest war ever fought on American soil, with some 620,000 of 2.4 million soldiers killed, millions more injured and much of the South left in ruin.

Causes of the Civil War

In the mid-19th century, while the United States was experiencing an era of tremendous growth, a fundamental economic difference existed between the country’s northern and southern regions.

In the North, manufacturing and industry was well established, and agriculture was mostly limited to small-scale farms, while the South’s economy was based on a system of large-scale farming that depended on the labor of Black enslaved people to grow certain crops, especially cotton and tobacco.

Growing abolitionist sentiment in the North after the 1830s and northern opposition to slavery’s extension into the new western territories led many southerners to fear that the existence of slavery in America —and thus the backbone of their economy—was in danger.

Did you know? Confederate General Thomas Jonathan Jackson earned his famous nickname, "Stonewall," from his steadfast defensive efforts in the First Battle of Bull Run (First Manassas). At Chancellorsville, Jackson was shot by one of his own men, who mistook him for Union cavalry. His arm was amputated, and he died from pneumonia eight days later.

In 1854, the U.S. Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act , which essentially opened all new territories to slavery by asserting the rule of popular sovereignty over congressional edict. Pro- and anti-slavery forces struggled violently in “ Bleeding Kansas ,” while opposition to the act in the North led to the formation of the Republican Party , a new political entity based on the principle of opposing slavery’s extension into the western territories. After the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Dred Scott case (1857) confirmed the legality of slavery in the territories, the abolitionist John Brown’s raid at Harper’s Ferry in 1859 convinced more and more southerners that their northern neighbors were bent on the destruction of the “peculiar institution” that sustained them. Abraham Lincoln ’s election in November 1860 was the final straw, and within three months seven southern states—South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas—had seceded from the United States.

Outbreak of the Civil War (1861)

Even as Lincoln took office in March 1861, Confederate forces threatened the federal-held Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina. On April 12, after Lincoln ordered a fleet to resupply Sumter, Confederate artillery fired the first shots of the Civil War. Sumter’s commander, Major Robert Anderson, surrendered after less than two days of bombardment, leaving the fort in the hands of Confederate forces under Pierre G.T. Beauregard. Four more southern states—Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina and Tennessee—joined the Confederacy after Fort Sumter. Border slave states like Missouri, Kentucky and Maryland did not secede, but there was much Confederate sympathy among their citizens.

Though on the surface the Civil War may have seemed a lopsided conflict, with the 23 states of the Union enjoying an enormous advantage in population, manufacturing (including arms production) and railroad construction, the Confederates had a strong military tradition, along with some of the best soldiers and commanders in the nation. They also had a cause they believed in: preserving their long-held traditions and institutions, chief among these being slavery.

In the First Battle of Bull Run (known in the South as First Manassas) on July 21, 1861, 35,000 Confederate soldiers under the command of Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson forced a greater number of Union forces (or Federals) to retreat towards Washington, D.C., dashing any hopes of a quick Union victory and leading Lincoln to call for 500,000 more recruits. In fact, both sides’ initial call for troops had to be widened after it became clear that the war would not be a limited or short conflict.

The Civil War in Virginia (1862)

George B. McClellan —who replaced the aging General Winfield Scott as supreme commander of the Union Army after the first months of the war—was beloved by his troops, but his reluctance to advance frustrated Lincoln. In the spring of 1862, McClellan finally led his Army of the Potomac up the peninsula between the York and James Rivers, capturing Yorktown on May 4. The combined forces of Robert E. Lee and Jackson successfully drove back McClellan’s army in the Seven Days’ Battles (June 25-July 1), and a cautious McClellan called for yet more reinforcements in order to move against Richmond. Lincoln refused, and instead withdrew the Army of the Potomac to Washington. By mid-1862, McClellan had been replaced as Union general-in-chief by Henry W. Halleck, though he remained in command of the Army of the Potomac.

Lee then moved his troops northwards and split his men, sending Jackson to meet Pope’s forces near Manassas, while Lee himself moved separately with the second half of the army. On August 29, Union troops led by John Pope struck Jackson’s forces in the Second Battle of Bull Run (Second Manassas). The next day, Lee hit the Federal left flank with a massive assault, driving Pope’s men back towards Washington. On the heels of his victory at Manassas, Lee began the first Confederate invasion of the North. Despite contradictory orders from Lincoln and Halleck, McClellan was able to reorganize his army and strike at Lee on September 14 in Maryland, driving the Confederates back to a defensive position along Antietam Creek, near Sharpsburg.

On September 17, the Army of the Potomac hit Lee’s forces (reinforced by Jackson’s) in what became the war’s bloodiest single day of fighting. Total casualties at the Battle of Antietam (also known as the Battle of Sharpsburg) numbered 12,410 of some 69,000 troops on the Union side, and 13,724 of around 52,000 for the Confederates. The Union victory at Antietam would prove decisive, as it halted the Confederate advance in Maryland and forced Lee to retreat into Virginia. Still, McClellan’s failure to pursue his advantage earned him the scorn of Lincoln and Halleck, who removed him from command in favor of Ambrose E. Burnside . Burnside’s assault on Lee’s troops near Fredericksburg on December 13 ended in heavy Union casualties and a Confederate victory; he was promptly replaced by Joseph “Fighting Joe” Hooker , and both armies settled into winter quarters across the Rappahannock River from each other.

After the Emancipation Proclamation (1863-4)

Lincoln had used the occasion of the Union victory at Antietam to issue a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation , which freed all enslaved people in the rebellious states after January 1, 1863. He justified his decision as a wartime measure, and did not go so far as to free the enslaved people in the border states loyal to the Union. Still, the Emancipation Proclamation deprived the Confederacy of the bulk of its labor forces and put international public opinion strongly on the Union side. Some 186,000 Black Civil War soldiers would join the Union Army by the time the war ended in 1865, and 38,000 lost their lives.

In the spring of 1863, Hooker’s plans for a Union offensive were thwarted by a surprise attack by the bulk of Lee’s forces on May 1, whereupon Hooker pulled his men back to Chancellorsville. The Confederates gained a costly victory in the Battle of Chancellorsville , suffering 13,000 casualties (around 22 percent of their troops); the Union lost 17,000 men (15 percent). Lee launched another invasion of the North in June, attacking Union forces commanded by General George Meade on July 1 near Gettysburg, in southern Pennsylvania. Over three days of fierce fighting, the Confederates were unable to push through the Union center, and suffered casualties of close to 60 percent.

Meade failed to counterattack, however, and Lee’s remaining forces were able to escape into Virginia, ending the last Confederate invasion of the North. Also in July 1863, Union forces under Ulysses S. Grant took Vicksburg (Mississippi) in the Siege of Vicksburg , a victory that would prove to be the turning point of the war in the western theater. After a Confederate victory at Chickamauga Creek, Georgia, just south of Chattanooga, Tennessee, in September, Lincoln expanded Grant’s command, and he led a reinforced Federal army (including two corps from the Army of the Potomac) to victory in the Battle of Chattanooga in late November.

Toward a Union Victory (1864-65)

In March 1864, Lincoln put Grant in supreme command of the Union armies, replacing Halleck. Leaving William Tecumseh Sherman in control in the West, Grant headed to Washington, where he led the Army of the Potomac towards Lee’s troops in northern Virginia. Despite heavy Union casualties in the Battle of the Wilderness and at Spotsylvania (both May 1864), at Cold Harbor (early June) and the key rail center of Petersburg (June), Grant pursued a strategy of attrition, putting Petersburg under siege for the next nine months.

Sherman outmaneuvered Confederate forces to take Atlanta by September, after which he and some 60,000 Union troops began the famous “March to the Sea,” devastating Georgia on the way to capturing Savannah on December 21. Columbia and Charleston, South Carolina, fell to Sherman’s men by mid-February, and Jefferson Davis belatedly handed over the supreme command to Lee, with the Confederate war effort on its last legs. Sherman pressed on through North Carolina, capturing Fayetteville, Bentonville, Goldsboro and Raleigh by mid-April.

Meanwhile, exhausted by the Union siege of Petersburg and Richmond, Lee’s forces made a last attempt at resistance, attacking and captured the Federal-controlled Fort Stedman on March 25. An immediate counterattack reversed the victory, however, and on the night of April 2-3 Lee’s forces evacuated Richmond. For most of the next week, Grant and Meade pursued the Confederates along the Appomattox River, finally exhausting their possibilities for escape. Grant accepted Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Court House on April 9. On the eve of victory, the Union lost its great leader: The actor and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre in Washington on April 14. Sherman received Johnston’s surrender at Durham Station, North Carolina on April 26, effectively ending the Civil War.

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The American Civil War Essay Examples

Type of paper: Essay

Topic: United States , America , Lincoln , Organization , Slavery , Violence , Government , War

Words: 1100

Published: 01/02/2020

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The American Civil War

The American civil war was fought from 1861 to 1865 and is believed to have consumed more lives than all other wars combined. The war was anticipated for over 40 years after the American Revolution due to conflicts between the North and south. There were many issues between the two sides, but slavery was the central issue. Another cause was taxation of goods imported from foreign countries. The taxes were called tariffs and the southerners felt oppressed since they imported more goods than the northerners. Goods exported from the south were heavily taxed, which was not applicable to goods of equal value exported from the north. These irregularities existed because the northern and Midwestern states had become very influential and their populations were increasing. Southern states were not very populated, which made them lose their power. This created sectionalism where the states were distinguished by differences in economy, culture, and values (Ford, 2004). The issue of slavery formed the center stage in the conflict leading to the civil war. Slaves provided labor in the plantations and farms owned by the whites. The southerners had more acceptance of slavery since the colonial period than the northerners. People from the north felt that the institution of slavery was uncivilized and should be abolished. Slavery for the southern Americans was protected by both the federal and state laws. The first confrontation occurred in 1819 when Missouri was admitted to the union as a slave state. This upset the balance of power in the senate, which constituted of 11 Free states and 11 slave states. The admission of Missouri increased the number of slave states to twelve. In 1820, Senator Henry Clay proposed the Missouri Compromise that admitted Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state to keep the balance of power (Glatthaar and Gallagher, 2001). The fugitive slave law passed in 1850 required all Americans to return runaway slaves. In 1857, the Supreme Court failed to grant freedom to Scott Dred who was a slave. This ruling was controversial to the northern anti-slavery leaders. In 1859, John Brown was executed for his attempt to steal weapons from the federal armory. This incident proved that the southern interests were not well represented in the senate, and the southerners wanted to secede from the north. The election of Abraham Lincoln as president in 1860, who was a republican and anti-slavery activist was viewed as a blow against secession by southern democrats (Ford, 2004). However, South Carolina and six other states managed to secede in 1860 and early 1861 and formed the Confederate States of America. These states attacked Fort Sumter in 1861, which belonged to the Union and was supported by the North. Lincoln called upon 75,000 from 23 states loyal to the Union to quell the rebellion of the south. States loyal to the union and those in the south began raising volunteers to serve in the armies. This marked the beginning of the civil war between the north and south. The war came to an end when three constitutional amendments were passed by congress. The 13th amendment of 1865 abolished the institution of slavery. The 14th amendment of 1868 granted citizenship to freed slaves and the 15th amendment of 1870 gave them the right to vote. The war had changed the political, social, and economic setup of America in less than 10 years. The ruling from the Scott case had concluded that African Americans could not attain partial or full citizenship whether free or slaves. This separated the country along racial lines since Africans were not entitled to constitutional rights enjoyed by the whites (Ford, 2004). The Blacks were considered inferior and could not interact with the whites either socially or politically. The 13th amendment aimed at forestalling the secession but was interfered with by the war and replaced in 1865 with the amendment that abolished slavery. The abolishment of slavery was not a goal of the government since Lincoln raised armies to preserve the Union and not to abolish slavery. Abolishing slavery was eventually assimilated as an aim for the preservation of the union by 1863. The end of the civil war ended the institution of slavery and secession by the southern states. The Confederacy was founded by Alexander to fight for the rights of slaves. The institution of slavery was built on racism, and it was difficult for the confederacy to fight for their rights. Racism continued even in the Reconstruction Era between 1865 and 1877. This undermined the 13th, 14th, and 15th constitutional amendments. The rights of the African Americans eroded in the following decades, and they were marginalized and segregated politically and economically. The white supremacy in the south was still evident after the civil war. Three black Americans could be lynched every week in the south between 1890 and 1920. Black Americans had to pay taxes but were denied the constitutional rights enjoyed by the whites (Glatthaar and Gallagher, 2001). The government had forgotten the rights of slaves in a rush to prevent the secession of the south. The southern philosophers considered slaves to be contented in slavery since they were committed and faithful to their masters. This made the southerners fight for the existence of the institution of slavery, but they were overwhelmed by the military strength of the Union. This ideology of slavery remained among the southerners as the country progressed to the industrial age and the Progressive Era. The south developed the Great Alibi since its defects became virtues of the war and their defeat turned victory long after the war had ended. The northern states considered themselves to be the savior of the nation by instilling morality to the southern states. Slavery continued to dominate the disagreements between the north and the south in the 19th century. The southern states took long to reconstruct due to destruction by the north that was better armed and had bigger troops than the southern forces. The civil war erupted in 1861, but the differences between the two sides began with the Declaration of Independence. The declaration did not address the abolition of slavery effectively, and the African Americans were granted fewer rights than the whites. These rights were still debatable between the abolitionists and the southern masters. The war stopped in 1865, but its legacy still exists in the current society. The war granted freedom to the slaves, and it gave them constitutional rights even though they were fully entitled to these rights several decades after the war.

Ford, C. T. (2004). The American Civil War: An overview. Berkeley Heights, NJ: Enslow Publishers. Glatthaar, J. T., & Gallagher, G. W. (2001). The American Civil War. Oxford: Osprey Military.

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The American Civil War: A collection of free online primary sources

Susan Birkenseer

The American Civil War began in 1861, lasted until 1865, and was ruinous by any standard. Within months of President Lincoln’s inauguration, seven southern states began the secession from the Union and declared the Confederate States of America. This split in the fabric of the country began a bitter war, concluding in the death of more than 750,000 soldiers. When the South finally surrendered, the Confederacy collapsed, and slavery was abolished. To understand the conflict, take a look back at the primary documents that highlight decisions of generals, the everyday drudgery of soldiers, and the photographic images of battle.

Hundreds of websites offer insight into the American Civil War. This guide is not comprehensive, but it highlights a diverse collection of free websites of primary sources for the study of the war. These websites include digitized newspaper archives for both the Union and Confederate sides of the struggle, collections of letters and diaries, digitized photographs, maps, and official records and dispatches from the battlefields.

• Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1841–1955). An important daily newspaper, the Eagle was unusual for its time since it covered national as well as regional news. The archive is searchable, can be browsed by date, and includes zooming capabilities to see the tiny text up close. The archive is maintained by the Brooklyn Public Library. Access: http://bklyn.newspapers.com/title_1890/the_brooklyn_daily_eagle/ .
• Chronicling America. This site offers access to multiple newspapers from both the Confederate and Union states. Over 1,400 newspapers are in the archive, but not all of them are from the Civil War years. Examples of newspaper titles include: Memphis Appeal (1857–1886), Chattanooga Rebel (1862–1865), New York Sun (1859–1916), and New York Daily Tribune (1842–1866). Search across the newspapers for a range of contemporary stories from both sides of the war. From the Library of Congress. Access: http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/#tab=tab_newspapers .

• Richmond Daily Dispatch (1860–1865). This paper was published from the Confederate capital and has a digitized and searchable online archive of 1,384 issues. The site is funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Access: http://dlxs.richmond.edu/d/ddr/index.html .
• Secession-Era Editorials. This site from the Furman University history department in South Carolina contains transcribed editorials from contemporary newspapers, all from the 1850s. The specific issues discussed are the Nebraska Bill debates, the caning attack on Senator Charles Sumner by Representative Preston Brooks, John Brown’s Raid on Harper’s Ferry, and the Dred Scott decision. These events all highlight the varied and inflexible opinions of their time from both sides of the conflict. Access: http://history.furman.edu/editorials/see.py .

Maps and photographs

• Civil War Glass Negatives and Related Prints. Approximately 7,000 portraits and battleground images are available. The collection is from the glass negatives of Mathew Brady and Alexander Gardner, as well as from photographic collections that were purchased by the Library of Congress in 1943. Browse by broad subjects or search by keyword. Access: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/cwp/ .

• Pictures of the Civil War. The new era of photography brought the battles home during the American Civil War. The National Archives has organized the Mathew Brady and Alexander Gardner photographs into broad categories for easy browsing. Access: http://www.archives.gov/research/military/civil-war/photos/index.html .

Diaries and letters

• Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress. Approximately 20,000 documents, which include correspondence with enclosures of newspaper clippings, drafts of speeches, notes, pamphlets, and other printed material by Lincoln, are available. Most of the material dates from the presidential years. Lincoln had a lively correspondence with many people in his day, so this is a rich resource. Each piece is scanned, with accompanying transcription. Searchable by keyword or just browse the collection. Access: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/alhtml/malhome.html .
• American Civil War Collection at the Electronic Text Center. This site has transcribed letters from the University of Virginia special collections with links to other collections (some links are only accessible by University of Virginia students). Access: http://etext.virginia.edu/civilwar/ .
• The Civil War Archive: Letters Home from the Civil War. A collection of letters from both Union and Confederate soldiers, organized by name and regiment. Access: http://www.civilwararchive.com/LETTERS/letters.htm .
• The Civil War Collection at Michigan State University. A huge online collection of scanned letters, newspaper articles, images, photographs, diaries, and much more, filled with the stories of Michigan soldiers. Access: http://civilwar.archives.msu.edu/ .
• The Civil War Collection at Penn State. Penn State has a rich digitized special collection. These include diaries, newspapers, and other ephemera. No transcriptions are available for the diaries, but the scanned pages are clean and easy to peruse. Access: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/psul/digital/civilwar.html .
• Civil War Diaries and Letters. Browse a list of scanned diaries and letters from the University of Iowa Libraries, some of which currently have transcriptions, but not all. You can also browse by year to get the materials for a particular time. Access: http://digital.lib.uiowa.edu/cwd/ .
• Civil War Diaries and Letters Collections. A collection of diaries and letters from Auburn University, covering both sides of the war; each item is scanned and transcribed. Access: http://diglib.auburn.edu/collections/civilwardiaries/ .

• The Civil War: Women and the Home-front. Duke University has put together this study guide relating to women’s role during the war. Use the tab labeled “Primary Sources Online,” which includes digitized diaries and letters, as well as outside links to other institutions’ collections. The online papers include a collection from Rose O’Neal Greenhow, a famed Confederate spy. Other letters include those written by African American slaves, describing their living conditions in the South. Access: http://guides.library.duke.edu/content.php?pid=41224&sid=303304 .
• First Person Narratives of the American South. Everyday people’s voices speak through their diaries, autobiographies, ex-slave accounts, and memoirs on this site, which is organized alphabetically or by subject. Access: http://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/index.html .
• Manuscripts of the American Civil War. This special collection from the University of Notre Dame’s Rare Books and Special Collections contains seven soldier’s diaries, which have been carefully scanned and transcribed. The soldiers represented are from both sides of the war. The diaries highlight their day-to-day experiences—from the mundane to the terrifying. Access: http://www.rarebooks.nd.edu/digital/civil_war/diaries_journals/ .
• Saint Mary’s College of California Special Collections. Saint Mary’s College has a small, select special collection containing letters from a private in the Fifth Vermont regiment, and a diary from a captain of the Sixteenth Michigan regiment. The collections are digitized and transcribed, and the site is well illustrated. Access: http://www.stmarys-ca.edu/library/about-the-library/special-collections .
• South Carolina and the Civil War. The site brings together primary sources by eyewitnesses from the holdings of the University of South Carolina. Included on the site are diaries, sheet music, maps, letters, and photographs. The collections are scanned and viewable, but with little transcription or description. Access: http://library.sc.edu/digital/collections/civilwar.html .
• Valley of the Shadow. Thousands of documents are accessible that compare life in two towns during the war: one in Virginia and one in Pennsylvania. These documents include letters, diaries, maps, newspaper accounts, and other sources. Access: http://valley.lib.virginia.edu/ .
• Virginia Military Institute Archives. The Virginia Military Institute has a proud history of training its students to serve in the military service of the United States. The archives provide access to the full-text of more than 75 letters, diaries, manuscripts, and other ephemera of soldiers from both armies. Access: http://www.vmi.edu/Archives/Civil_War/Civil_War_Resources_Home/ .
• Wisconsin Goes to War: Our Civil War Experience. The University of Wisconsin is in the process of digitizing letters, diaries, poetry, and other writings from Wisconsin’s soldiers; approximately 630 pages to date, with an expected completion number to be more than 2,600 pages. Access: http://uwdc.library.wisc.edu/collections/WI/WIWar .

Dispatches and battles

• Antietam on the Web. This site looks at the crucial Battle of Sharpsburg (Antietam), highlighting generals and other officers, battle maps, and important background information. This site also includes the transcriptions of reports from the officers from both sides of the war, as well as excerpts from diaries and letters of some of the soldiers who survived. Access: http://antietam.aotw.org/index.php .
• Making of America: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies. The Making of America site is an excellent source of primary documents, and this one features the orders, reports, and correspondence from the Union and Confederate navies. The scanned pages of the 30-volume set from the Government Printing Office are annotated and arranged chronologically. The collection is searchable. This is an essential resource for any study of naval operations in the war. Access: http://ebooks.library.cornell.edu/m/moawar/ofre.html .
• Ulysses S. Grant Presidential Library. This site from Mississippi State University contains the first 31 volumes of The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant published by Southern Illinois University Press, and includes his military papers from the Civil War. Also included are photographs and prints from the life of Grant, including photographs from the war. The volumes are searchable as well as browsable. Access: http://digital.library.msstate.edu/cdm/usgrantcollection .
• The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. This 70-volume work from the Making of America site at Cornell University contains the formal reports for both the Union and Confederate armies, including correspondence and orders. The scanned volumes are arranged chronologically and identified with a brief annotation. The volumes are searchable. This is an essential resource for anyone doing serious research on battles, regiments, and the progress of the war. Access: http://digital.library.cornell.edu/m/moawar/waro.html .

Slavery and abolitionism

• Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936–1938. Includes more than 2,300 first-person accounts, and more than 500 photographs. The narratives were collected in the 1930s by the Federal Writer’s Project and the Works Progress Administration, and put into a seventeen volume set. Access: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/snhtml/snhome.html .
• Frederick Douglass Papers. A former slave and devout abolitionist, Douglass’s papers were digitized by the Library of Congress. They are searchable, and also can be browsed by date, and then narrowed by type, such as speeches or correspondence. Access: http://www.loc.gov/collection/frederick-douglass-papers/about-this-collection/ .
• North American Slave Narratives. The University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill has a special collection dedicated to slave narratives. Not every manuscript is a primary document, but many are. Included on the site are narratives of fugitive and former slaves in published form from before 1920. For scholars interested in further study, a bibliography of slave and former-slave narratives by William L. Andrews is also included. Access: http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/index.html .
• Slavery and Abolition in the U.S.: Select Publications of the 1800s. Reflecting both sides of the slavery question, these publications from the 1800s include speeches, tracts, pamphlets, books, legal proceedings, religious sermons, and personal accounts. This collection from a cooperative project by Millersville University and Dickinson College includes more than 24,000 individual pages. Access: http://deila.dickinson.edu/slaveryandabolition/index.html .
• Slaves and the Courts 1740–1860. From the Library of Congress’s American Memory Project this site consists of trials and cases, arguments, proceedings, and other historical works of importance that relate to the prosecution and defense of slavery as an institution. The collection contains more than 100 pamphlets and books published between 1772 and 1889. Access: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/sthtml/ .

Confederacy

• The Museum of the Confederacy. Various primary sources are accessible, including a collection of photographs, documents, and artifacts relating to Lee and Jackson, the “Roll of Honor and Battle Accounts” from Confederate soldiers, and a searchable database of their collections. Access: http://www.moc.org/collections-archives?mode=general .
• The Papers of Jefferson Davis. A selection of documents from the published papers of the same name that includes speeches, reports, and correspondence. The documents are organized by volume with brief annotations. Access: http://jeffersondavis.rice.edu/documentslist.aspx .

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10 Facts: What Everyone Should Know About the Civil War

Fact #1: The Civil War was fought between the Northern and the Southern states from 1861-1865.

The American Civil War was fought between the United States of America and the Confederate States of America, a collection of eleven southern states that left the Union in 1860 and 1861. The conflict began primarily as a result of the long-standing disagreement over the institution of slavery. On February 9, 1861,   Jefferson Davis , a former U.S. Senator and Secretary of War, was elected President of the Confederate States of America by the members of the Confederate constitutional convention.  After four bloody years of conflict, the United States defeated the Confederate States. In the end, the states that were in rebellion were readmitted to the United States, and the institution of slavery was abolished nation-wide.

Fact #2: Abraham Lincoln was the President of the United States during the Civil War.

Abraham Lincoln grew up in a log cabin in Kentucky.  He worked as a shopkeeper and a lawyer before entering politics in the 1840s.  Alarmed by his anti-slavery stance, seven southern states seceded soon after he was elected president in 1860—with four more states to soon follow.  Lincoln declared that he would do everything necessary to keep the United States united as one country. He refused to recognize the southern states as an independent nation and the Civil War erupted in the spring of 1861.  On January 1, 1863, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation , which freed the slaves in the areas of the country that "shall then be in rebellion against the United States." The Emancipation Proclamation laid the groundwork for the eventual freedom of slaves across the country.  Lincoln won re-election in 1864 against opponents who wanted to sign a peace treaty with the southern states.  On April 14, 1865, Lincoln was shot by assassin John Wilkes Booth, a southern sympathizer. Abraham Lincoln died at 7:22 am the next morning. 

Fact #3: The issues of slavery and central power divided the United States.

Slavery was concentrated mainly in the southern states by the mid-19th century, where slaves were used as farm laborers, artisans, and house servants. Chattel slavery formed the backbone of the largely agrarian southern economy.  In the northern states, industry largely drove the economy. Many people in the north and the south believed that slavery was immoral and wrong, yet the institution remained, which created a large chasm on the political and social landscape. Southerners felt threatened by the pressure of northern politicians and “abolitionists,” who included the zealot John Brown , and claimed that the federal government had no power to end slavery, impose certain taxes, force infrastructure improvements, or influence western expansion against the wishes of the state governments. While some northerners felt that southern politicians wielded too much power in the House and the Senate and that they would never be appeased. Still, from the earliest days of the United States through the antebellum years, politicians on both sides of the major issues attempted to find a compromise that would avoid the splitting of the country, and ultimately avert a war. The Missouri Compromise , the Compromise of 1850 , the Kansas-Nebraska Act , and many others, all failed to steer the country away from secession and war. In the end, politicians on both sides of the aisle dug in their heels. Eleven states left the United States in the following order and formed the Confederate States of America: South Carolina , Mississippi , Florida, Alabama, Georgia , Louisiana, Texas , Virginia , Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee.

Fact #4: The Civil War began when Southern troops bombarded Fort Sumter, South Carolina.

When the southern states seceded from the Union, war was still not a certainty. Federal forts, barracks, and naval shipyards dotted the southern landscape. Many Regular Army officers clung tenaciously to their posts, rather than surrender their facilities to the growing southern military presence. President Lincoln attempted to resupply these garrisons with food and provisions by sea. The Confederacy learned of Lincoln’s plans and demanded that the forts surrender under threat of force.  When the U.S. soldiers refused, South Carolinians bombarded  Fort Sumter in the center of Charleston harbor.  After a 34-hour battle, the soldiers inside the fort surrendered to the Confederates.  Legions of men from north and south rushed to their respective flags in the ensuing patriotic fervor. 

Fact #5: The North had more men and war materials than the South.

At the beginning of the Civil War, 22 million people lived in the North and 9 million people (nearly 4 million of whom were slaves) lived in the South.  The North also had more money, more factories, more horses, more railroads, and more farmland. On paper, these advantages made the United States much more powerful than the Confederate States.  However, the Confederates were fighting defensively on territory that they knew well. They also had the advantage of the sheer size of the Southern Confederacy. Which meant that the northern armies would have to capture and hold vast quantities of land across the south. Still, too, the Confederacy maintained some of the best ports in North America—including New Orleans, Charleston, Mobile, Norfolk, and Wilmington. Thus, the Confederacy was able to mount a stubborn resistance.

Fact #6: The bloodiest battle of the Civil War was the Battle of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

The Civil War devastated the Confederate states.  The presence of vast armies throughout the countryside meant that livestock, crops, and other staples were consumed very quickly.  In an effort to gather fresh supplies and relieve the pressure on the Confederate garrison at Vicksburg, Mississippi, Confederate General Robert E. Lee launched a daring invasion of the North in the summer of 1863.  He was defeated by Union General George G. Meade in a three-day battle near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania that left nearly 51,000 men killed, wounded, or missing in action. While Lee's men were able to gather the vital supplies, they did little to draw Union forces away from Vicksburg, which fell to Federal troops on July 4, 1863. Many historians mark the twin Union victories at  Gettysburg  and Vicksburg , Mississippi, as the “turning point” in the Civil War. In November of 1863, President Lincoln traveled to the small Pennsylvania town and delivered the Gettysburg Address, which expressed firm commitment to preserving the Union and became one of the most iconic speeches in American history. 

Fact #7: Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee did not meet on the field of battle until May of 1864.

Arguably the two most famous military personalities to emerge from the American Civil War were Ohio born Ulysses S. Grant , and Virginia born Robert E. Lee . The two men had very little in common. Lee was from a well respected First Family of Virginia, with ties to the Continental Army and the founding fathers of the nation. While Grant was from a middle-class family with no martial or family political ties. Both men graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point and served in the old army as well as the Mexican-American War. Lee was offered command of the federal army amassing in Washington, in 1861, but he declined the command and threw his hat in with the Confederacy. Lee's early war career got off to a rocky start, but he found his stride in June of 1862 after he assumed command of what he dubbed the Army of Northern Virginia. Grant, on the other hand, found early success in the war but was haunted by rumors of alcoholism. By 1863, the two men were by far the best generals on their respective sides. In March of 1864, Grant was promoted to lieutenant general and brought to the Eastern Theater of the war, where he and Lee engaged in a relentless campaign from May of 1864 to Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House eleven months later. 

Fact #8: The North won the Civil War.

After four years of conflict, the major Confederate armies surrendered to the United States in April of 1865 at Appomattox Court House and Bennett Place .  The war bankrupted much of the South, left its roads, farms, and factories in ruins, and all but wiped out an entire generation of men who wore the blue and the gray.  More than 620,000 men died in the Civil War, more than any other war in American history.  The southern states were occupied by Union soldiers, rebuilt, and gradually re-admitted to the United States over the course of twenty difficult years known as the Reconstruction Era. 

Fact #9: After the war was over, the Constitution was amended to free the slaves, to assure “equal protection under the law” for American citizens, and to grant black men the right to vote. 

During the war, Abraham Lincoln freed some slaves and allowed freedmen to join the Union Army as the  United States Colored Troops  (U.S.C.T.).  It was clear to many that it was only a matter of time before slavery would be fully abolished.  As the war drew to a close, but before the southern states were re-admitted to the United States, the northern states added the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the Constitution. The amendments are also known as the "Civil War Amendments."  The 13th Amendment abolished slavery in the United States, the 14th Amendment guaranteed that citizens would receive “equal protection under the law,” and the 15th Amendment granted black men the right to vote.  The 14th Amendment has played an ongoing role in American society as different groups of citizens continue to lobby for equal treatment by the government. 

Fact #10: Many Civil War battlefields are threatened by development.

The United States government has identified 384 battles that had a significant impact on the larger war.  Many of these battlefields have been developed—turned into shopping malls, pizza parlors, housing developments, etc.—and many more are threatened by development.  Since the end of the Civil War, veterans and other citizens have struggled to preserve the fields on which Americans fought and died.  The American Battlefield Trust and its partners have preserved tens of thousands of acres of battlefield land. 

Learn More: Civil War Animated Map

Death by Fire

Silent Witness

Augmented Reality: Preserving Lost Stories

Related battles, explore the american civil war.

1866 the Civil Rights Act

This essay about the Civil Rights Act of 1866 examines its revolutionary impact on American society post-Civil War. Highlighting its role in dismantling the oppressive Black Codes in the South, the essay details the Act’s provisions for equal rights irrespective of race or color, and its contentious passage through a Congress willing to override President Andrew Johnson’s veto. It reflects on the Act’s limitations, noting the persistent struggle for enforcement against a backdrop of resistance and the foundational groundwork it laid for the 14th Amendment and future civil rights advancements. Through this analysis, the essay underscores the Act’s significance as both a legal and moral landmark in the ongoing fight for equality, recognizing it as a crucial, yet initial step toward realizing the American ideals of justice and freedom for all.

How it works

In the kaleidoscope of American history, the Civil Rights Act of 1866 shines as a bold, early stroke of color against the grain of longstanding injustice. This act wasn’t just a piece of legislation; it was a declaration of a new dawn after the dark night of the Civil War, aiming to stitch the nation back together on a more equitable fabric. Passed in a time of tumult and transformation, it sought to redefine what it meant to be American, who got to enjoy the freedoms so vaunted by the nation’s founders, and set the stage for the civil rights struggles that would continue to define the country’s social landscape.

Let’s get something straight: the Act was revolutionary. It came at a time when the Southern states, still licking their wounds from the Civil War defeat, enacted Black Codes, a series of draconian laws that aimed to tether the newly freed African Americans to an existence barely a notch above slavery. These codes were the South’s way of saying, “You’re free, but not really.” Into this arena stepped the Civil Rights Act of 1866, swinging the federal sledgehammer at these codes, proclaiming that all persons born in the U.S. had the same rights, regardless of skin color.

The drama surrounding the Act’s passage could rival any political thriller. President Andrew Johnson, a man who viewed the Reconstruction efforts with as much enthusiasm as one might a tooth extraction, vetoed the bill. His argument? It trampled on states’ rights and unfairly favored African Americans. Yes, you read that right. But Congress, not to be sidelined and fueled by a group of legislators who could only be described as the Avengers of their day, overrode Johnson’s veto. This wasn’t just a policy dispute; it was a full-blown constitutional showdown, setting the stage for the larger battles of Reconstruction and the very soul of the nation.

However, let’s not don rose-tinted glasses when we look back at the Act. It was a beacon of hope, yes, but it flickered in a still-dark world. Enforcement was spotty at best and non-existent at worst, especially in the South where resistance was as thick as molasses. The Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups didn’t exactly throw welcome parties for the new legislation. The Act was a crucial step, but it was just that – a step on a long, rocky road towards equality.

What the Civil Rights Act of 1866 did do, aside from infuriating Andrew Johnson, was lay down the legal framework for the 14th Amendment. It challenged the grotesque Dred Scott decision head-on, asserting that, yes, African Americans are citizens with rights that needed respecting. This was the federal government stepping into the ring, gloves on, ready to defend its people.

Yet, as we toast to the Act and its contributions, let’s remember that the fight it began is far from over. It took another century of struggle, protest, and advocacy to bring its promises closer to reality – and the journey continues. The Act is both a milestone and a reminder of the work yet to be done, of the persistent gap between the ideals of justice and equality and their realization in the lives of all Americans.

In wrapping up, the Civil Rights Act of 1866 is more than a dusty old document in the archives of American legislation. It’s a testament to the belief that change, however daunting, is possible. It’s proof that with enough grit, determination, and perhaps a bit of political maneuvering, strides towards a more just society can be made. So, here’s to the Civil Rights Act of 1866 – a first leap, albeit into an unknown future, but a leap nonetheless towards the promise of true equality for all.

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Guest Essay

The New Movie ‘Civil War’ Matters for Reasons Different Than You Think

By Stephen Marche

Mr. Marche is the author of “The Next Civil War.”

“Not one man in America wanted the Civil War, or expected or intended it,” Henry Adams, grandson of John Quincy Adams, declared at the beginning of the 20th century. What may seem inevitable to us in hindsight — the horrifying consequences of a country in political turmoil, given to violence and rived by slavery — came as a shock to many of the people living through it. Even those who anticipated it hardly seemed prepared for its violent magnitude. In this respect at least, the current division that afflicts the United States seems different from the Civil War. If there ever is a second civil war, it won’t be for lack of imagining it.

The most prominent example arrives this week in the form of an action blockbuster titled “Civil War.” The film, written and directed by Alex Garland, presents a scenario in which the government is at war with breakaway states and the president has been, in the eyes of part of the country, delegitimized. Some critics have denounced the project, arguing that releasing the film in this particular election year is downright dangerous. They assume that even just talking about a future national conflict could make it a reality, and that the film risks becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. This is wrong.

Not only does this criticism vastly overrate the power of the written word or the moving image, but it looks past the real forces sending the United States toward ever-deeper division: inequality; a hyperpartisan duopoly; and an antiquated and increasingly dysfunctional Constitution. Mere stories are not powerful enough to change those realities. But these stories can wake us up to the threats we are facing. The greatest political danger in America isn’t fascism, and it isn’t wokeness. It’s inertia. America needs a warning.

The reason for a surge in anxiety over a civil war is obvious. The Republican National Committee, now under the control of the presumptive nominee, has asked job candidates if they believe the 2020 election was stolen — an obvious litmus test. Extremism has migrated into mainstream politics, and certain fanciful fictions have migrated with it. In 1997, a group of Texas separatists were largely considered terrorist thugs and their movement, if it deserved that title, fizzled out after a weeklong standoff with the police. Just a few months ago, Texas took the federal government to court over control of the border. Armed militias have camped out along the border. That’s not a movie trailer. That’s happening.

But politicians, pundits and many voters seem not to be taking the risk of violence seriously enough. There is an ingrained assumption, resulting from the country’s recent history of global dominance coupled with a kind of organic national optimism, that in the United States everything ultimately works out. While right-wing journalists and fiction writers have been predicting a violent end to the Republic for generations — one of the foundational documents of neo-Nazism and white supremacy is “The Turner Diaries” from 1978, a novel that imagines an American revolution that leads to a race war — their writings seem more like wish fulfillment than like warnings.

When I attended prepper conventions as research for my book, I found their visions of a collapsed American Republic suspiciously attractive: It’s a world where everybody grows his own food, gathers with family by candlelight, defends his property against various unpredictable threats and relies on his wits. Their preferred scenario resembled, more than anything, a sort of postapocalyptic “Little House on the Prairie.”

We’ve seen more recent attempts to grapple with the possibility of domestic conflict in the form of sober-minded political analysis. Now the vision of a civil war has come to movie screens. We’re no longer just contemplating a political collapse, we’re seeing its consequences unfold in IMAX.

“Civil War” doesn’t dwell on the causes of the schism. Its central characters are journalists and the plot dramatizes the reality of the conflict they’re covering: the fear, violence and instability that a civil war would inflict on the lives of everyday Americans.

That’s a good thing. Early on when I was promoting my book, I remember an interviewer asking me whether a civil war wouldn’t be that terrible an option; whether it would help clear the air. The naïveté was shocking and, to me, sickening. America lost roughly 2 percent of its population in the Civil War. Contemplating the horrors of a civil war — whether as a thought experiment or in a theatrical blockbuster — helps counteract a reflexive sense of American exceptionalism. It can happen here. In fact, it already has.

One of the first people to predict the collapse of the Republic was none other than George Washington. “I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the state, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations,” he warned in his Farewell Address. “This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature.” This founder of the country devoted much of one of his most important addresses, at the apex of his popularity, to warning about the exact situation the United States today finds itself in: a hyper-partisanship that puts party over country and risks political collapse. Washington knew what civil war looked like.

For those Americans of the 1850s who couldn’t imagine a protracted, bloody civil war, the reason is simple enough: They couldn’t bear to. They refused to see the future they were part of building. The future came anyway.

The Americans of 2024 can easily imagine a civil war. The populace faces a different question and a different crisis: Can we forestall the future we have foreseen? No matter the likelihood of that future, the first step in its prevention is imagining how it might come to pass, and agreeing that it would be a catastrophe.

Stephen Marche is the author of “The Next Civil War.”

Source photographs by Yasuhide Fumoto, Richard Nowitz and stilllifephotographer, via Getty Images.

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248 Civil War Essay Topics & Examples

In case you’re looking for original Civil War research topics, you are on the right page.

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📃 7 Tips for Writing a Civil War Essay

Every student of politics or history has to write a Civil War essay at some point. To make the process easier, we have collected the best tips on nailing the content, research, and structure! Here is how to earn an excellent mark on your paper:

Tip 1: Check the instructions carefully. You would be surprised to know how many students earn a C or less because they missed something in the instructions.

To avoid making this mistake, check all the materials provided by your tutor, including civil war essay topics, titles, and the grading rubric. Highlight the most important parts of the instructions to memorize them better.

Tip 2: Select a particular topic. Obviously, you will be focusing on the Civil War for this assignment. However, to make your paper stand out, try digging deeper and examining a specific aspect of the Civil War that interests you.

Would you be interested to evaluate how slavery impacted the Civil War? Or would you like to examine the causes and effects of this period? Pursuing your interests will aid you in adding more depth to your essay, and your tutor will certainly appreciate the effort!

Tip 3: Browse sample papers on the Civil War. Whether or not you are struggling with the first two tips, this process will be beneficial. There are plenty of resources on the Internet that you could search to find Civil War essay prompts and examples.

Reading those will aid you in defining the focus of your paper and structuring it well. Make sure to note what works well and what doesn’t in each paper you read. This way, you’ll know how to avoid making the same mistakes while writing your essay.

Tip 4: Do extensive research before you start writing. While you may have some basic information about the Civil War in your textbook, your tutor probably expects you to go beyond that and add more details.

In order to do that, you should search online resources or your institution’s library for books and articles about the Civil War. Be creative about your search! Try to examine all possible keywords and their combinations.

For instance, instead of merely typing in “civil war,” consider other search phrases, such as “civil war causes and effects,” “civil war politics,” and more. The more topics you include in your research, the more high-quality resources you will be able to find.

Tip 5: Avoid using unverified sources. While you may find a lot of useful information about the Civil War on various web pages, don’t be tempted to use them in the paper. The information contained in a blogs, non-academic website, or a civil war essay example may be unverified, false, or biased.

Don’t worry, the Internet still has a great selection of reputable articles and publications that you could rely on.

Hence, try limiting your search to peer-review journals, publications by universities, museums, or government entities, and history books. Doing so will help you to show your proficiency in secondary research while also preventing your tutor from taking away the deserved marks.

Tip 6: Structure your essay well. Each paragraph of your essay should have one central idea, and all of your statements should follow in a logical sequence.

For instance, if you are writing a paragraph on the events that led to emancipation proclamation, you should not mention the Great Depression there. Re-read each paragraph after completion to ensure that its content is relevant and there are no gaps.

Tip 7: Cite your sources correctly. Whenever you write down ideas that are not your own, include an in-text citation. Make sure to check the instructions to see which citation format is acceptable with your tutor!

If you are unfamiliar with a particular citation style, you can always search out website for formatting tips and guidelines, as well as for Civil War essay titles.

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• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

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Manisha Sinha

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Historian sees a warning for today in post-Civil War U.S.

Past is present at Warren Center symposium featuring scholars from Harvard, Emory, UConn, and University of Cambridge

Christy DeSmith

Harvard Staff Writer

Americans need not look abroad for historical comparisons to authoritarian currents in the country today, according to University of Connecticut scholar Manisha Sinha . The post-Civil War U.S. offers plenty.

“We need to pay a lot of attention to the period after 1877 going right up until at least 1900,” Sinha said. “It is a compelling example of the overthrow of American democracy for a significant period in U.S. history, and one that is so pertinent for our own fraught times.”

Sinha’s take on the backlash to Reconstruction was part of a symposium that the Warren Center for Studies in American History hosted on April 4. “The Past, Present, and Future of American Democracy” featured four scholars who highlighted historical forerunners to recent political crises, including efforts to overturn the election of Joe Biden.

“It seemed the right time to host a conversation that brings together historically minded scholars to do what historians do best: use a historical angle of vision to help us understand our contemporary dilemmas,” said moderator Lisa McGirr , director of the Warren Center and the Charles Warren Professor of American History. The symposium was co-sponsored by the Center for American Political Studies , the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research , the History Department, and the American Studies program.

After the devastation of the Civil War, U.S. capitalism was successfully rebuilt even as the country’s newly interracial democracy collapsed, Sinha argued. The demise of Reconstruction’s reforms was followed by decades of what she called “reactionary authoritarianism.”

“Around 4 million enslaved won their freedom and citizenship rights only to be subject to a new regime of racist terror,” said Sinha, who was a 2007-08 faculty fellow at the Warren Center. “Despite the emergence of the suffrage movement, women remained disenfranchised; Asian American immigrants were systematically excluded; and strikes by workers of all ethnicities violently put down.”

The anti-democratic ethos was evident far beyond the Jim Crow South, said Sinha, whose new book, “The Rise and Fall of the Second American Republic,” examines tensions between democracy and capitalism from 1860 to 1920.

“The rapid industrialization of the country and the dismal conditions of labor that followed Reconstruction made a mockery of the free labor ideology of the victorious North,” she said. “New wars and imperial dreams of empire — inspired by the regime of racist apartheid in the post-Reconstruction South and the conquest of western Indian nations — further hollowed American democracy at home and abroad. By the end of the 19th century, a formal U.S. empire would subject people from the Caribbean to the Philippines to colonial rule.”  

To be sure, Reconstruction itself represented “a truly emancipatory moment,” she said, emphasizing the power of the Equal Protection Clause embedded in the 14th Amendment, which was ratified in 1868. But that vision was eclipsed by a new ideology combining racism with suspicions of big government, she said, and the rise of these malign forces would have global ramifications.

“By the early 20th century, the United States was not only the city upon a hill, an unprecedented experiment in democratic republicanism, but it could now serve as a barbaric model of racist oppression,” she said. “The Jim Crow South, the genocide and warfare against Indian nations would inspire the Nazis in Germany as well as the apartheid state in South Africa.”

Also speaking at the symposium was American historian Gary Gerstle of the University of Cambridge, who offered up the New Deal of the 1930s and the triumph of neoliberalism in the 1990s as examples of Democratic progress and regress. African American Studies Professor Carol Anderson of Emory University gave an overview of her newly established Imagining Democracy Lab , with lessons on engaging young people drawn from the Civil Rights Movement and more. Harvard’s Daniel Ziblatt , Eaton Professor of the Science of Government and director of the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, drew from 2023’s “Tyranny of the Minority” to argue for reforms to the Constitution. The book, co-authored with Professor  Steven Levitsky , includes a chapter on the democratic collapse that followed Reconstruction.

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How America’s next Civil War could unfold: ‘It’s looming – the battle lines have already been drawn’

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Famous for its craft beer and indie bookstores, the city of Portland in Oregon is not an obvious place for the United States to start fraying at the seams. A haunt of Millennial hipsters and downsized tech bros, it prides itself as a vegan-friendly, eco-friendly, migrant-friendly beacon of progressive America.

One person many Portlanders have never felt friendly towards, though, is Donald Trump , and when he unveiled his “zero-tolerance” immigration policy back in 2018, protesters took to the streets. So too did the Far-Right Patriot Prayer and Proud Boys movements – which is how Alexander Reid Ross, a Portland academic who studies political violence, got some first-hand experience of his specialism.

“A big fight broke out between about 150 right-wingers and 75 anti-fascists, and at one point, about seven right-wingers were crowded around one kid giving him a real stomping,” he remembers. “I rushed to push them away, at which point one of them punched me in the face.”

Ross backed off, but then went back into the fray, warning the mob that they risked killing the man they were beating. “Later, the guy who was being stomped said I’d probably saved his life.”

Footage of the incident can still be seen on YouTube – one of countless clips of violence from the Trump years , which also saw the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 and the storming of the Capitol in 2021.

Similar scenes of unrest also feature at the start of the new film Civil War – which takes the concept of America’s political fracturing to its logical extreme. In director Alex Garland ’s new dystopian blockbuster, the enemy isn’t Russia, Islamic terrorists or AI, but the American people themselves, who have taken up arms against each other.

The movie is fictional, but with widespread fears that November’s presidential elections may plunge America back into turmoil, many are already hailing it as a cautionary tale. Some have even questioned the wisdom of Hollywood releasing it in the current climate, fearing it may stoke tensions further.

“Is an action blockbuster that feeds into the violent fantasies of neo-Confederates, anti-government militias and MAGA morons a good idea?” asked one contributor to a discussion thread on Reddit. “I personally don’t think so.”

Such jitters aren’t uncommon – according to a 2022 poll by YouGov and the Economist, 40 per cent of Americans think a new civil war is “at least somewhat likely in the next 10 years”.

Perhaps wary of stirring such tensions further, in the film Garland is at pains to avoid saying what has sparked the conflict, or who the combatants are. As he told a recent preview of the film at Texas’s SXSW festival: “We don’t need it explained – we know exactly why it might happen, what the fault lines and the pressures are.”

All viewers learn is that 19 states have seceded from Washington’s rule, led by a (somewhat unlikely) alliance between Texas and California, sparking a war that has left the country in ruins. Even the film’s central characters are ostensibly neutral observers – a team of journalists, led by a seen-it-all war photographer played by Kirsten Dunst , who drive across the nation in a bid to interview the embattled president (Nick Offerman).

Indeed, the film is as much about journalism as it is about war – a profession which, even in the cynical Trumpian era of fake news, still seems to hold some romance for Garland. Dunst and her team are utterly fearless, following soldiers into bouts of very close-quarters combat. Their bravery gets them remarkable pictures – although if this correspondent’s experiences of covering real-life wars for The Telegraph are anything to go by, the chances of them still being alive to collect their Pulitzers at the end of it all would be limited. Also slightly rose-tinted is the way their car has “PRESS” emblazoned on it. In most modern conflicts – especially civil wars in 21st century America – that is as likely to get journalists into trouble as out of it.

Nonetheless, Garland leaves viewers in no doubt that the movie is inspired by real-life US events. The president is an authoritarian who has scrapped the FBI – an apparent reference to Trump’s own legal run-ins with the Bureau. The war’s original frontline is Charlottesville, Virginia – scene of fierce clashes between Far Right and anti-fascists in 2017 at the notorious “Unite the Right” rally, in which one anti-fascist protestor was killed.  And while there are no obvious rednecks vs woke standoffs, one soldier who holds Dunst’s team at gunpoint asks pointedly, “what kind of Americans are you?”

So could such a scenario happen in real life? Might America see a second Civil War, with MAGA supporters and liberals replacing Confederates and Yankees, and the culture wars as the faultline rather than slavery?

Perhaps unsurprisingly, America seems as divided on this question as on any other. For every doomsayer, others point out that the US has weathered similar upheavals in the past. Take the 1960s, for example, which saw the counterculture revolution, the anti-Vietnam War protests and the assassinations of John F Kennedy and Martin Luther King. Could things really get even worse than that?

Garland, for one, seems to think so. Social media, he says, has turbo-charged the tribalism of US politics, with both sides portraying each other as not merely wrong, but evil.

“Left and right are ideological arguments about how to run a state,” he told SXSW. “But we’ve made it into ‘good and bad’... it’s f––king idiotic, and incredibly dangerous.”

Ross, who has studied far-right movements in his work at Portland State University, believes that the risk of war has ebbed compared to 2020, when a “low-intensity conflict could have been feasible”. But he too is far from complacent.

“A lot of the Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol are now in jail, and that has taken the wind out of their sails a bit,” he says. “But if Trump gets re-elected, he wants revenge – he’ll pardon all the Proud Boys, and they’ll come straight back to places like Portland to fight people again.”

A rematch of past street brawls isn’t the only looming flashpoint. Trump may yet face jail for his role in the Capitol riot, which would infuriate his supporters. If re-elected, he has threatened a mass deportation of illegal migrants, and to cut federal funding to Democrat-run cities with rising crime rates, branding them “anarchist jurisdictions”.

He continues, also, to use language often compared to Hitler’s, vowing to “root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country”.

Meanwhile, the culture wars still rage over issues such as abortion rights, the teaching of race and gender identity politics in schools, and border control, with different states taking matters into their own hands. Republican-run Texas, for example, has refused to comply with a Supreme Court order to remove razor wire along the Rio Grande, citing President Biden’s failure to halt illegal immigration.

There is also a widening urban-rural divide. In rural areas of Oregon, for example, conservative voters want to secede to neighbouring Idaho, unhappy at being lumped in with liberal Portland.

In a recent article for London’s Chatham House think tank, Bruce Stokes, an Associate Fellow in the Americas Programme, argued that the US was now “more divided along ideological and political lines than at any time since the 1850s”.

“I don’t think we’re going to see armies of blue and grey-clad soldiers fighting it out,” he tells me, referring to the uniforms worn by the Unionists and Confederates. “But if you look at a whole series of issues, from abortion to LGBT rights and the death penalty, you get a divide that is similar to the old Civil War ones.”

While formal state-vs-state conflict seems unlikely, what could happen is a messy Northern Ireland-style Troubles. Rather than the conventional military forces that square off in the film, there would be gangs and paramilitary groups carrying out tit-for-tat killings.

“I am not saying someone is going to assassinate Biden or Trump, but all kinds of other legislators and officials have no security,” says Mr Stokes. “Could some politically-deranged person assassinate one, which then has a copy-cat effect?”

This is far from a rhetorical question. Last November, David DePape, a right-wing conspiracy theorist, was convicted of the attempted kidnap of former Democrat House speaker Nancy Pelosi. Meanwhile a California man, Nicholas Roske awaits trial on charges that he plotted to kill Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a Trump nominee, at his home in 2022.

The risk of bloodshed is made much easier by America’s ultra-liberal gun laws. Many far-right militias in the US are already heavily-armed, as seen by the assault rifles they carried during protests in the Trump years.

Ross believes that left-wing groups may also now tool up if trouble flares again. He fears the growth of American versions of far-left groups like Italy’s Red Brigades, which killed nearly 50 people in kidnappings and robberies during the 1970s and 1980s.

“Left-wing protesters suffered a lot of police brutality during the 2020 protests, and that can end up just sending people into traumatic spirals that can unleash enormous violence,” he said. “I do worry that if Trump gets elected again, it could spawn new left-wing formations who will not be constructive at all.”

Just as the Soviet Union is said to have funded the Red Brigades and other European terror groups, warring factions in America might get covert support from Washington’s enemies abroad, for example Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

While they would be no match for the state directly, they could shelter within sympathetic civilian populations, as the IRA did during the Troubles. In extremis, insurgent movements might even get backing from local National Guard units and sheriff’s departments, which often cherish their independence from federal government.

One man who fears the risk of civil war more than most is Mark McCloskey, a lawyer from Missouri. During the height of the BLM demonstrations in 2020, he and his wife Patricia pointed weapons at protesters who marched through their private neighbourhood. Photos of the stand-off, in which McCloskey carried a rifle and his wife a pistol, came to symbolise how close America was getting to open conflict.

McCloskey, who has since run for Republican office and been hailed as a hero in conservative circles, told me some likely “tipping points” he sees for a future conflict. They included an attempt to jail Trump, dramatically increased gun control measures, and “BLM type riots which would be met by armed resistance.”

He added: “I could go on and on as to what the average person sees as political system that is intentionally weakening our country – open borders where illegal immigrants get funding and rights that are denied to citizens, rampant drug use killing more Americans each year while states push to legalize drugs, the promotion of anti-family lifestyles... the war against religion. So, yeah, I can see a civil war looming on the horizon. The battle lines have already been drawn.”

Garland’s film has already sparked lengthy online debates about how such a conflict would unfold. And this being the divided America of the 2020s, no discussion is complete with some predictions about which side would win.

“I see a working class and rural sort of alliance facing off against a laptop-class urban elite,” wrote one Reddit poster. “Of the two, I can guess who is tougher, more self-reliant and probably has military experience and knows how to use guns. It’s not the investment banker in the Hamptons or the HR executive for a tech firm in Silicon Valley.”

In a civil war, though, a military victory doesn’t mean a moral victory – especially when the arguments are over complex issues like values and identity. Stokes, who at 74 is old enough to remember the US student protests of the 1960s, cautions radicals of all persuasions to be careful what they wish for, be they Portland anti-fascists or Virginia Trump die-hards.

“I remember back in 1968, there was a lot of loose talk among young college people like me about how we might have to have a revolution. A romantic Marxist sense of overthrowing the old order and installing a new one. We forgot that when that happened in Russia, there was a lot of terror afterwards.”

Review: Civil War, 5*

Alex Garland's Apocalypse Now for centrists thrills at every turn

Civil War is in cinemas now

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‘Civil War’ Ending Explained — Who Wins When America Fights Itself?

Editor's note: The following contains spoilers for 'Civil War'

• Civil War imagines the U.S. engulfed in a war, with government forces attacking civilians and journalists in the Capitol.
• The film follows a group of journalists, led by Kirsten Dunst's character, attempting to interview the President amidst violent urban warfare.
• Alex Garland's Civil War presents a disturbing portrayal of domestic conflict that ends on a gut-wrenching note, addressing American disunity.

While his work generally falls within the category of “science fiction,” the stories and themes that writer/director Alex Garland has addressed throughout his career have been very prophetic. As a screenwriter, Garland addressed the perils of a global pandemic in his game-changing zombie flick 28 Days Later , examined the reality of a climate crisis with his space opera Sunshine , and addressed the state of police brutality with his revisionist superhero action film, Dredd . As a director, Garland tackled the reality of artificial intelligence with the sci-fi thriller Ex Machina and the concept of alternative realities in his underrated miniseries, Devs . With Civil War , Garland has created an incisive examination of a domestic conflict that feels eerily similar to recent events in America’s history. While it makes for an uncomfortable viewing, Civil War ends on a gutting note that addresses the systemic issue of American disunity.

The film follows events in the U.S. during a civil war. Government forces attack civilians. Journalists are shot in the Capitol.

Release Date April 12, 2024

Director Alex Garland

Cast Jefferson White, Cailee Spaeny, Wagner Moura, Sonoya Mizuno, Nick Offerman, Kirsten Dunst

Genres Drama, Action

What Is ‘Civil War’ About?

Set in the not-so-distant future, Civil War imagines a version of America where the United States is in the midst of a massive terrain conflict . While a majority of the Northeastern states remain loyal to the Union and the President of the United States ( Nick Offerman ), the “Florida Alliance” of southern states and “Western Forces” of Texas and California have both attempted to secede and declare themselves independent. Unwilling to cooperate with the proposed terms of a stalemate, the President has taken to bombing domestic targets and increasing the presence of the United States military throughout the nation.

Although it appears that the rebel factions will be launching a full-scale attack on the White House in Washington D.C., a group of journalists makes a desperate attempt to interview the President before it’s too late. The renowned photojournalist Lee Smith ( Kirsten Dunst ) has earned national recognition for her outstanding work capturing images of the war-torn nation. She is accompanied by her Floridian colleague Joel ( Wagner Moura ) and the veteran The New York Times reporter Sammy ( Stephen McKinley Henderson ). During the team’s brief stay in New York City, Lee is approached by the aspiring photographer Jessie ( Cailee Spaney ), who considers Lee to be one of her heroes. Although Lee is resistant to the idea of bringing along a young recruit on such a dangerous mission, Joel decides to let her join them on the trip to the capital.

Throughout their road trip adventure , the journalists are exposed to shocking displays of urban warfare between different military units . Although they are joined by the Hongkonger reporters Tony ( Nelson Lee ) and Bohai ( Evan Lai ) in a refugee town on the route to Charlottesville, both of their colleagues are violently murdered by a military leader ( Jesse Plemons ) who refuses to tolerate anyone that isn’t an American. It appears that the deranged soldier and his followers will execute Joel, Lee, and Jessie, as they have collected evidence of the militia burying their victims in a mass grave. Although Sammy manages to save them by plowing through the soldiers, he is mortally wounded and dies in the car trip afterward. While Lee suffers from extreme post-traumatic stress disorder, Jessie begins to work even harder to capture powerful images of the war. She wants to finally prove herself to be “worthy” in Lee’s eyes by finding a “perfect shot.”

‘Civil War’ Ends With a Shocking White House Battle

In the aftermath of Sammy’s death, Lee, Joel, and Jessie arrive at a Western Forces base in Charlottesville. They learn from the British reporter Anya ( Sonoya Mizuno ) that the rebels are preparing to storm the capital and execute the fictional President of the United States , who is portrayed as a dictator not dissimilar from America’s 45th Commander-In-Chief. The journalists follow the Western Forces to a violent battle near The White House , where the rebel soldiers engage in a firefight with the Secret Service. Although several vehicles leave the building, Lee realizes that it is a decoy meant to draw out the soldiers, and decides to enter The White House.

While the journalists enter The White House, the rebel soldiers refuse to accept the attempts to surrender requested by the President’s guards, resulting in another set of violent firefights. After being nearly pinned down by enemy fire, Jessie is saved by Lee, who dies from a stray gunshot wound . Jessie manages to snap a photo of Lee moments before her demise, capturing the death of her “hero” in intimate detail. The powerful moment of journalism is disrupted when Joel joins the rebels in entering the Oval Office.

'Civil War' Review: Forget 'Ex Machina,' This Is Alex Garlands Best Film Yet

After surrounding the President, the soldiers give Joel the brief opportunity to question the President for his upcoming story. Traumatized and angry at Lee’s death, Joel declines to ask for a full interview and simply asks the President for a quote. While he desperately pleads for his life to be spared, the President is executed in cold blood by the Western Forces . Footage of soldiers standing by the President’s corpse is presented within the closing credits as the sound of Suicide’s “Keep Your Dreams” plays in the background for a particularly disturbing needle drop.

What Is Alex Garland Saying With ‘Civil War'?

Assessing the intentions of Civil War is challenging, as many of Garland’s best projects thus far require multiple viewings to entirely comprehend on a thematic level. While it could be seen as a warning about the prospects of division, Civil War is largely unspecific in its characterization of the political leanings of the different factions . The notion of impartiality somehow makes the film more disturbing, as the film includes footage of such iconic American landmarks as the Statue of Liberty.

Although Garland has admitted his lack of enthusiasm for the state of the film industry , Civil War is an incendiary work of fiction that is bound to generate intense discussions . It may be easy to critique the graphic nature of the film’s story, but it’s also hard to deny the visceral impact of the narrative Garland presents.

Civil War is in theaters now.

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