American Civil War and the abolition of slavery

Date

1861–1865 (Emancipation Proclamation 1 January 1863; 13th Amendment ratified 6 December 1865)

Category

Military & conflict

Region

North America (United States)

Era

Modern

Significance

The American Civil War (1861–1865) was fought between the United States and eleven Southern states that seceded to form the Confederacy, primarily over slavery and its expansion. It became the deadliest conflict in American history, killing an estimated 750,000 soldiers and devastating the South.

On 1 January 1863 President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring free more than three million enslaved people in the rebelling states and authorising the enlistment of Black soldiers and sailors, of whom some 200,000 served the Union cause. The proclamation transformed the war into a struggle for human freedom and made restoration of the old slaveholding order impossible. The Confederacy collapsed in April 1865, and on 6 December 1865 the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified, abolishing slavery throughout the United States. The Union's victory preserved the nation as a single federal republic, ended legal slavery and opened the contested era of Reconstruction. As a turning point that ended chattel slavery in the world's largest slaveholding economy and reshaped American democracy, the war ranks among the most consequential events of the nineteenth century.

Empires active in 1861–1865 (Emancipation Proclamation 1 January 1863; 13th Amendment ratified 6 December 1865)

• French Colonial Empire (Second)
  1830 CE – 1962 CE
• Russian Empire
  1721 CE – 1917 CE
• British Empire
  1583 CE – 1997 CE
• Qing Dynasty
  1636 CE – 1912 CE
• Spanish Empire
  1492 CE – 1976 CE
• Portuguese Empire
  1415 CE – 1999 CE

Related military & conflict events

• The Franco-Prussian War, German unification and the Paris Commune
  19 July 1870 – 10 May 1871; German Empire proclaimed 18 January 1871
• The Taiping Rebellion
  1850–1864
• First Opium War and the Treaty of Nanking
  1839–1842 (Treaty of Nanking, 29 August 1842)
• Russo-Japanese War and Japan's Rise as a Great Power
  1904–1905
• Battle of Waterloo
  18 June 1815
• Napoleon's invasion of Russia
  June–December 1812

Also relevant

• The Second Italian War of Independence and the Battle of Solferino
  April–July 1859

Further reading

Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era

If you read one book

Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era

James M. McPherson

The Pulitzer-winning one-volume history.

Get it on Amazon →

Also worth reading

• The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery — Eric FonerAmazon →

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