The American Civil War

Trailer for the History Channel's special on the Battle of Gettysburg, the largest battle in the Western Hemisphere and held the largest artillery barrage until the First World War. (It was okay, the whole thing's on youtube if you want to watch it.

The American Civil War was the bloodiest conflict in US history: over 600,000 died, and in today's population that would be about 6,000,000. The American Civil War is arguably the first industrial war, with the railroad being the primary means of victory for the North (The US had more rail than all of Europe by the end of the war). It was the birth of total war, as represented by Union general William Tecumseh Sherma's "March to the Sea". It officially ended the use of Napoleonic tactics in modern war, and was presided over by the United States' greatest President (arguably), Abraham Lincoln. Also arguably, the greatest American generals, Robert E. Lee and 'Stone Wall' Jackson for the South, and William T. Sherman and Ulysses S. Grant for the North.

Ah the American Civil War. This is one of my favorite subjects. So many cool things to learn. The dual of the first Ironclads, the horrid Siege of Vicksburg, the famous Battle of Gettysburg, the Confederate submarine, Sherman's march to Atlanta, Lee and Stonewalls various battles, the assassination of Lincoln. this is one of my "favorite" wars. Living in the South I have met a lot of Confederate sympathizers. Part of the South's plight was about state's rights, something I am all for. However they stood and stand for racism against Black men and women. There for I believe this war ended with the right side winning. Also Lincoln was such a great man. As our first Republican President he worked hard to make America free for all races(mainly Black people). He is one of our greatest presidents if not the best. It is tragic he was shot by a assassin. Booth is scum and I hope he is burning in hell for killing President Lincoln. Thank you for making this thread LeonTrotsky.

First must I say this is about the millionth thread on the American Civil War. Now that I got that off my chest...


Lincoln was what would today be called a Democrat although he was technically a Republican, his beliefs went in line with the Democrats of today. And I hate it when people say "her derp the Civil War was not about slavery it was about states rights herp derp". The fact is yes it was about states rights. However, slavery was the only "state right" that could not have been solved by compromise or any other means other than war, or by complete force of the national government, which would have lead to the Civil War anyway. In short, for slavery to end, the Civil War had to happen.

i frequntly study the civil war and i prefer the south (not politically, of course) because they were the underdog in the fact that their industry was a joke and had a far less population, and to achieve what they did is amazing to say the least but the north held the moral high ground and won the war, probobly for the best

I still can't get over the fact I keep getting the Civil War and War of Independence mixed up sometimes, and I can't for the life of me get why.

Talking about other threads I'm going to post the same thing from the North versus south thread.

From the founding of the US the slavery issue was put a side. It first started with the founding fathers when they put the 3/5 compromise in the Constitution that counted every slave would represent 3/5 of a person for representation in the house. This compromise had more to do with than just representation in a bigger sense every time someone talked about maybe doing something about slavery they wouldn't because the Constitution by having this compromise said that it was a legal institution.

Then came the Missouri Compromise in 1820 when Missouri was about to become a state. Missouri wanted to become a slave state. The problem was that people in the north were concerned that by doing this that in the senate the free states could be out voted by the slave states because up till then the number of free and slave states were equal. So what happens is that they come up with this compromise that would make Missouri a slave state and makes Maine a free state, so this keeps the number equal. Than the next part of this compromise is that every state that was to be formed north of the parallel 36 30' from this point on would be a free state. Now this compromise only talked about land that was part of the Louisiana Purchase. Make sure to remember that.

The next problem would come after the Mexican American War. The US would get alout of land after winning the war. So now the problem is when these territories tried to become states how were we going to decide whether or not these states were going to be slave or free. Now the Missouri Compromise was only about land that was part of the Louisiana Purchase so they came up with a new compromise in 1850. The compromise made California a free state and stated that any state that that would come out of the New Mexico and Utah territory would be decided by Popular Sovereignty which allowed the people of the state to vote weather are not to become a free or slave state.

Then came the problem of what to do with Kansas. Kansas was part of the Louisiana Purchase so people were wondering would they use the compromise in 1820 or the compromise in 1850 to decide. So what happens is the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854 to decide the issue by using Popular Sovereignty. The thing is that this doesn't go over so well because people stated flooding to Kansas that is for and against slavery and this causes violence. (John Brown) and gives it the nickname "Bleeding Kansas". In a way this was just a smaller version of the civil war.

Next would be the Dread Scott case in 1857 which ruled that Any person descended from Africans, whether slave or free, is not a citizen of the United States, according to the Constitution and that there was no such thing as a free state, which angered the people from the north. This meant that all the compromises take came before this were unconstitutional. Then came to the event that would lead to Secession, the election of 1860 with Abraham Lincoln.

There's nothing cool about war. But It's what I teach, the Civil war was just about the southern part of America saying blacks should work on my cotton fields instead of me. Basically people were just to damn lazy to work it themselves.

Well the US Civil War was one of the first modern wars, with repeating rifles, telegraphs, machine guns, balloons, Iron-clad ships, submarines, railroads, and trench warfare.

Indeed.

The Battle of Chancelorsville lost the war for the Confederates.

Well not so much the battle, as it was the death of "Stone Wall" Jackson by his own men.

Funny how it is known as Lee's "perfect battle".

Which is what I meant.

Stonewall jackson was overrated in my opinion.

WHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHATTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT?

Anyone important in History gets overrated to a degree.

The funny thing is, that the Rebels could barely affort many victories like Chancelorsville, after all, as you guys said, it resulted in the Death of T. J. Stonewall Jackson. The Rebels also lost 13,000 men. and when you consider how many men the Rebels had, that's not something they can afford. That, coupled with the battles of Vicksburg and Gettysburg a month later, turned the tide of the War. Not to say that there were not places it could have turned back around (battle of Chattanooga) but Lee never had another offensive campaign ever again, which is where he was most brillant.

Fun fact: The commander who gave "Stonewall" Jackson his famous title might have actually been mocking him. He said "He's standing their like a stonewall," which leads some historians to think that he was saying Jackson was not doing anything.

What were the other countries thinking about the war? We briefly learned that the South had more International support in our textbooks.

Yeah, that amounted to nothing.
GB was thinking of getting involved, but then there was the Trent affair.
But that is just what I know.