The American Civil War: 1861 - 1865

The United States of America was born out of the yearning of the many people who had travelled there from the old world of Europe to be free of the imperial powers that had dominated them for centuries. To have democracy, liberty, justice for all and to take command of their own destiny.

The birth of the American nation was a painful one, first by having to fight against the forces of the British and then against the indigenous people of North America, within and from outside of the new borders they had declared. In between the many conflicts, the new nation had to establish its own laws, political system and even its own culture none of which developed overnight.

Obviously, there would not always be a consensus. Over the century after 1776 when the United States of America was born, while growing under a political union of the states that it was composed of, it also saw the widening of a cultural divide between the industrious northern states and the agricultural southern states. Perhaps more than anything else, the two sides of this divide found themselves at odds over the question of slavery.

The ethics of owning a person as property became a legal battle between those in support of the practice and those opposed in American courts and halls of power. Eventually, the dispute of course became a real battlefield. More Americans died in the American Civil War that raged on the North American continent between 1861 and 1865 than in any other war in which Americans have fought throughout its history.

And while the battles have long ended, the ramifications of the civil war continue to be felt to this very day in America over issues such as culture and of course race. So, let us delve into the history of this dark chapter of American history.