introduction paragraph for civil war essay

Short Essay: Civil War

Crafting a short essay on a topic as expansive as the Civil War can be a daunting task. The key to success lies in focusing your argument, conducting thorough research, and presenting your findings in a clear, concise manner. Below is a guide designed to help you write a compelling essay on the Civil War, covering everything from initial research to final proofreading.

Table of Contents

Understanding the Assignment

Before you begin, ensure you understand the requirements of the assignment. What is the prompt asking you to discuss? Is there a specific angle or topic you need to focus on, such as the causes of the Civil War, a particular battle, or the ramifications of the conflict? Clarifying these points will help you stay on topic and avoid unnecessary tangents.

Initial Research and Thesis Development

Start with a broad overview of the Civil War to help you narrow down your focus. Books, academic journals, and reputable online sources can provide a solid foundation of knowledge. As you research, look for a specific aspect of the Civil War that interests you and has sufficient material to explore in a short essay.

From your research, develop a thesis statement that presents your central argument. A strong thesis is specific and debatable, guiding the direction of your essay. For example, if you’re discussing the causes of the Civil War, your thesis might argue that while slavery was the central issue, other political and economic factors also played crucial roles.

Crafting an Outline

An outline is invaluable for organizing your thoughts and ensuring you cover all necessary points. For a 1200-word essay, a simple structure might include:

Mastering the Short Essay: Writing About the Civil War

Crafting a short essay on a topic as expansive as the Civil War can be a daunting task. The key to success lies in focusing your argument, conducting thorough research, and presenting your findings in a clear, concise manner. Below is a guide designed to help you write a compelling 1200-word essay on the Civil War, covering everything from initial research to final proofreading.

• Hook to engage the reader
• Background information
• Thesis statement
• Paragraph 1: Major cause or event with supporting evidence
• Paragraph 2: Another cause or event with supporting evidence
• Paragraph 3: Further analysis or an additional supporting point
• (Each paragraph should have a clear topic sentence and provide analysis, not just description)
• Restate the thesis in a new way
• Summarize key points
• Provide final thoughts or implications of your argument

Writing the Introduction

Begin your essay with a compelling hook, such as a provocative question, a brief anecdote, or a startling statistic related to the Civil War. Provide necessary background information that sets the stage for your thesis, and conclude the introduction with your thesis statement, clearly laying out what your essay will argue.

Developing the Body Paragraphs

Each body paragraph should focus on one main idea that supports your thesis. Start with a topic sentence that clearly states the paragraph’s main point. Follow this with evidence from your research, including quotes, statistics, and historical examples. Be sure to analyze the evidence, explaining how it supports your argument. Transition smoothly between paragraphs to maintain a cohesive narrative.

Writing the Conclusion

Your conclusion should restate your thesis in a new light, considering the evidence and analysis you’ve presented. Summarize the main points of your essay and end with a strong final thought that underscores the significance of your argument. Avoid introducing new information in the conclusion.

Integrating Sources

When citing sources, follow the required citation style (MLA, APA, Chicago, etc.) and ensure that all quotations and paraphrased material are properly attributed. This not only gives credit to the original authors but also strengthens the credibility of your own work.

Editing and Proofreading

After completing your draft, take a break before revising. Editing is crucial for clarity and conciseness. Check that each sentence and paragraph contributes to your thesis and that your argument flows logically. Look for areas where you can tighten your prose and eliminate redundancy.

Proofreading is the final step. Read your essay carefully for grammar, punctuation, and spelling errors. Reading aloud can help you catch mistakes that your eyes might skip when reading silently.

Additional Tips

• Stay within the word count. It’s easy to become engrossed in the vast history of the Civil War, but discipline is key to maintaining a concise essay.
• Use primary sources such as speeches, letters, and official documents to provide a firsthand perspective on the Civil War.
• Understand the limitations of your essay. You cannot cover everything about the Civil War in 1200 words, so focus on a particular aspect or argument.
• Maintain an objective tone, especially when discussing controversial or sensitive topics. Present evidence fairly and acknowledge counterarguments where appropriate.

Example of a Short Civil War Essay Structure

Introduction (150 words)

• Hook: Present an intriguing fact about the Civil War’s impact.
• Background: Briefly outline the period leading up to the war.
• Thesis: State your argument regarding the primary cause of the Civil War.

Body (900 words)

• Topic Sentence: Introduce the first cause (e.g., economic differences between theNorth and South).
• Evidence & Analysis: Provide specific examples and discuss how the economic divide contributed to tensions.
• Transition: Lead into the next paragraph by hinting at how economic factors intertwined with more direct causes.
• Topic Sentence: Discuss the role of slavery and its moral implications as a central cause.
• Evidence & Analysis: Use primary sources and historical evidence to show how slavery fueled sectionalism.
• Transition: Connect the issue of slavery to the wider political frictions it exacerbated.
• Topic Sentence: Address political factors, such as the power struggle between state and federal governments.
• Evidence & Analysis: Draw from political speeches and legislative acts to demonstrate the growing divide.
• Transition: Conclude with how these factors combined to make conflict inevitable.

Conclusion (150 words)

• Restate Thesis: Summarize your argument, now substantiated with evidence.
• Recap Main Points: Briefly review the causes discussed and their interconnections.
• Final Thought: Offer insight into the Civil War’s legacy and its relevance to contemporary issues or historical understanding.

By adhering to this structure and focusing on clear, analytical prose, your essay will not only fulfill the assignment’s requirements but also provide a meaningful contribution to the understanding of the Civil War’s complex causes and legacy.

Civil War Short Essay Example #1

The American Civil War remains one of the most transformative periods in United States history, a conflict that pitted brother against brother and nearly tore the nation asunder. While the moral battle over slavery is often cited as the primary cause of the war, an exploration of the period reveals a complex web of political and economic factors that were equally instrumental in leading to the secession of the Southern states and the subsequent conflict. This essay will argue that, in addition to the obvious moral divide over slavery, the Civil War was rooted in profound economic differences and political disputes that shaped the trajectory of the nation.

Economic Divergence Between North and South

The antebellum period in the United States was marked by a growing economic chasm between the industrializing North and the agrarian South. The North’s economy was rapidly diversifying and industrializing, leading to the development of a modern capitalist economy that required free labor and the protection of patents and innovations. In stark contrast, the Southern economy was heavily reliant on agriculture, particularly the cultivation of cotton, which required a large, cheap labor force — a need met by the institution of slavery.

The economic policies that benefited the North, such as tariffs on imported goods, were often detrimental to the South, which relied on free trade to export its agricultural products. The Tariff of 1828, known in the South as the “Tariff of Abominations,” exemplified such contentious economic policies, as it placed heavy duties on imported goods, disadvantaging Southern planters. The resulting economic strain contributed significantly to the growing sentiment of Southern nationalism and the belief that the federal government was favoring Northern interests at the expense of the Southern way of life.

Political Strife and the Struggle for Power

Politically, the United States was in turmoil as the debate over the expansion of slavery into new territories and states intensified. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 attempted to regulate the spread of slavery but ultimately only postponed the inevitable conflict. The Dred Scott decision of 1857, which ruled that African Americans could not be citizens and that Congress had no authority to prohibit slavery in the territories, inflamed tensions further, signaling to the anti-slavery North that there was no legal method to prevent the spread of the institution.

The election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860, on a platform that opposed the extension of slavery, was the final straw for many in the South. Lincoln’s victory was seen not only as a direct threat to the institution of slavery but also as evidence that the South no longer had a voice in the national government. Secession followed, as Southern states sought to protect their economic interests and maintain their political power by forming a separate nation in which their values and economic system could persist unchallenged.

While the moral conflict over the institution of slavery was undeniably a driving force behind the American Civil War, the struggle was also deeply rooted in fundamental economic and political disparities between the North and South. The industrial versus agricultural economies, the imposition of tariffs, the political power struggles, and the contentious legislation over the spread of slavery all combined to create an atmosphere ripe for conflict. The Civil War was, therefore, not solely a battle over the morality of slavery but also a clash over different visions of economic development and political power. Understanding these contributing factors is crucial to grasping the complexity of the Civil War and the lasting impact it had on the United States, shaping the nation’s economic and political landscape for generations to come.

Civil War Short Essay Example #2

The Civil War, a pivotal event in American history, was a complex conflict with roots extending deep into the nation’s past. Central to this conflict was the institution of slavery, which had not only moral and humanitarian implications but also profound socio-economic and political consequences. This essay contends that slavery was not just a side issue but the core factor that led to the secession of the Southern states and ultimately the Civil War, as it was inextricably linked to the identity, economy, and political power of the South.

Slavery: The Cornerstone of Southern Society

In the antebellum South, slavery was more than a labor system; it was the foundation upon which the social order and economic prosperity of the Southern states were built. The “peculiar institution” enabled the South to become a powerhouse of agricultural production, particularly in the cultivation of cotton, tobacco, and sugar. This agrarian economy was so reliant on slave labor that by the mid-19th century, nearly four million African Americans lived in bondage, representing a significant portion of the South’s population and economic might.

The wealth generated by slave labor created a stark division in society, with a small elite of plantation owners exerting considerable influence over Southern politics. This elite worked tirelessly to protect and expand slavery as essential to their economic interests and way of life, leading to a rigid defense of the institution and a growing sense of Southern distinctiveness.

The Moral and Political Battle Lines

The moral crusade against slavery had been growing for decades, with abolitionists in the North and elsewhere condemning the practice as an abhorrent violation of human rights. The publication of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” and the violent resistance to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, among other events, heightened Northern opposition to slavery and sowed seeds of sectional discord.

The political arena became a battleground over the issue of slavery, with the formation of the Republican Party in the 1850s, which held the containment of slavery as one of its central tenets. The Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act sought to address the extension of slavery in new territories but ultimately underscored the inability of legislative measures to resolve the deep-seated conflict.

The violent confrontations in “Bleeding Kansas,” the Dred Scott decision, and John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry were symptomatic of the tensions that had escalated to a level where political compromise seemed unachievable. The election of Abraham Lincoln, who was perceived as an enemy of the Southern way of life, acted as the catalyst that transformed the dispute over slavery from a political struggle into an armed conflict.

Secession and the Onset of War

The secession of the Southern states was a direct response to the threat they perceived to the institution of slavery. The Confederate States of America was founded on the principle of preserving and maintaining the institution of slavery, which its leaders deemed essential for their economic survival and societal structure. The firing on Fort Sumter in April 1861 was not just an act of rebellion; it was a defense of the socio-economic order of the South against what was seen as Northern aggression.

The American Civil War was fundamentally a conflict over slavery and its place in the United States. The institution was so deeply embedded in the Southern economy, society, and identity that any threat to its existence was met with the utmost resistance. While there were certainly other factors at play, including states’ rights and economic disagreements, these issues cannot be disentangled from the overarching presence of slavery. The battle over whether the United States would be a land of freedom or bondage shaped the political discourse of the era and ignited a war whose reverberations are still felt today. By acknowledging the centrality of slavery in the Civil War, we gain a clearer understanding of the profound sacrifices made in the pursuit of liberty and equality, and the ongoing struggle to realize these ideals for all Americans.

Final Thoughts

Writing a short essay on the Civil War demands focus, discipline, and attention to detail. By carefully selecting a topic, crafting a clear thesis, and supporting your argument with well-researched evidence, you can create a powerful and concise piece of writing. Remember to revise and proofread thoroughly to ensure that your essay is free of errors and that your argument shines through. With these strategies in mind, you are well-equipped to tackle a short essay on the Civil War or any other historical topic with confidence and skill.

About Mr. Greg

Mr. Greg is an English teacher from Edinburgh, Scotland, currently based in Hong Kong. He has over 5 years teaching experience and recently completed his PGCE at the University of Essex Online. In 2013, he graduated from Edinburgh Napier University with a BEng(Hons) in Computing, with a focus on social media.

Mr. Greg’s English Cloud was created in 2020 during the pandemic, aiming to provide students and parents with resources to help facilitate their learning at home.

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A Brief Overview of the American Civil War

The Civil War is the central event in America's historical consciousness. While the Revolution of 1776-1783 created the United States, the Civil War of 1861-1865 determined what kind of nation it would be. The war resolved two fundamental questions left unresolved by the revolution: whether the United States was to be a dissolvable confederation of sovereign states or an indivisible nation with a sovereign national government; and whether this nation, born of a declaration that all men were created with an equal right to liberty, would continue to exist as the largest slaveholding country in the world.

Northern victory in the war preserved the United States as one nation and ended the institution of slavery that had divided the country from its beginning. But these achievements came at the cost of 625,000 lives--nearly as many American soldiers as died in all the other wars in which this country has fought combined. The American Civil War was the largest and most destructive conflict in the Western world between the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 and the onset of World War I in 1914.

The Civil War started because of uncompromising differences between the free and slave states over the power of the national government to prohibit slavery in the territories that had not yet become states. When Abraham Lincoln won election in 1860 as the first Republican president on a platform pledging to keep slavery out of the territories, seven slave states in the deep South seceded and formed a new nation, the Confederate States of America. The incoming Lincoln administration and most of the Northern people refused to recognize the legitimacy of secession. They feared that it would discredit democracy and create a fatal precedent that would eventually fragment the no-longer United States into several small, squabbling countries.

The event that triggered war came at Fort Sumter in Charleston Bay on April 12, 1861. Claiming this United States fort as their own, the Confederate army on that day opened fire on the federal garrison and forced it to lower the American flag in surrender. Lincoln called out the militia to suppress this "insurrection." Four more slave states seceded and joined the Confederacy. By the end of 1861 nearly a million armed men confronted each other along a line stretching 1200 miles from Virginia to Missouri. Several battles had already taken place--near Manassas Junction in Virginia, in the mountains of western Virginia where Union victories paved the way for creation of the new state of West Virginia, at Wilson's Creek in Missouri, at Cape Hatteras in North Carolina, and at Port Royal in South Carolina where the Union navy established a base for a blockade to shut off the Confederacy's access to the outside world.

But the real fighting began in 1862. Huge battles like Shiloh in Tennessee, Gaines' Mill , Second Manassas , and Fredericksburg in Virginia, and Antietam in Maryland foreshadowed even bigger campaigns and battles in subsequent years, from Gettysburg in Pennsylvania to Vicksburg on the Mississippi to Chickamauga and Atlanta in Georgia. By 1864 the original Northern goal of a limited war to restore the Union had given way to a new strategy of "total war" to destroy the Old South and its basic institution of slavery and to give the restored Union a "new birth of freedom," as President Lincoln put it in his address at Gettysburg to dedicate a cemetery for Union soldiers killed in the battle there.

For three long years, from 1862 to 1865, Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia staved off invasions and attacks by the Union Army of the Potomac commanded by a series of ineffective generals until Ulysses S. Grant came to Virginia from the Western theater to become general in chief of all Union armies in 1864. After bloody battles at places with names like The Wilderness , Spotsylvania , Cold Harbor , and Petersburg , Grant finally brought Lee to bay at Appomattox in April 1865. In the meantime Union armies and river fleets in the theater of war comprising the slave states west of the Appalachian Mountain chain won a long series of victories over Confederate armies commanded by hapless or unlucky Confederate generals. In 1864-1865 General William Tecumseh Sherman led his army deep into the Confederate heartland of Georgia and South Carolina, destroying their economic infrastructure while General George Thomas virtually destroyed the Confederacy's Army of Tennessee at the battle of Nashville . By the spring of 1865 all the principal Confederate armies surrendered, and when Union cavalry captured the fleeing Confederate President Jefferson Davis in Georgia on May 10, 1865, resistance collapsed and the war ended. The long, painful process of rebuilding a united nation free of slavery began.

Learn More:  This Day in the Civil War

Death by Fire

Silent Witness

Augmented Reality: Preserving Lost Stories

Related battles, explore the american civil war.

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20 Interesting Topics & Writing Tips for Your Civil War Essay

Are you a student specializing in the history field? Well, there is no doubt you will have to write several essays revolving around civil war, politics, and history in general. Now, imagine you have a civil war essay topic you need to research and bring forth a meaningful context in the form of an essay. How will you start? What elements will you include in the paper? And how will you determine the best topic? Well, keep reading as we will share some of the best civil war essay prompts, perfect tips, and the overall approach you should take when writing such an essay.

The essay on Civil War: what are the pro tips?

While all essays may have a similar approach, there is a slight distinction in presenting ideas and facts, the language you use, and such elements. So, in the case of a civil war essay, you can use the tips below to bring out an incredible and admirable paper.

• Cite the right sources correctly

Of course, when writing a civil war essay, you will use different resources available in books or online platforms. This isn’t your information, so ensure you cite it appropriately. Also, don’t use any source; ensure you can determine the source is credible and correct since some sources can have false information about historic events.

• Write the best civil war essay introduction

The introduction part plays a significant role in your entire paper. It is the first section where the reader will interact with your paper. So, so don’t want to create a boring scenario in the introduction section. In this case, use a hook, then background information, and finally a thesis statement.

• Start with a civil war essay outline

An outline will give a roadmap to each section of your essay. Be sure to start with an outline to ensure you don’t forget relevant information in each section of the paper.

• Check the civil war essay example in advance

You don’t want to get stuck in the middle of writing your essay. When in doubt, be sure to clear all the doubts by checking other sample essays on the same topic to get a clue of what to write and how to put down your points.

• The civil war essay conclusion matters

How you end your essay on civil war has a higher significance to your whole paper. You will have to revisit the thesis statement, summarize the main points in the paragraphs, present the analysis from your research, and what people can learn from the whole matter.

• Always understand the instructions

You can have great points, ideas, and a well-structured civil war essay. However, if you miss any of the guidelines, you will get a low grade when you should have scored higher. So, avoid this by understanding the basic instructions carefully!

Civil War project topics: best topics to consider

As far as an essay on civil war is concerned, the topic you choose has a crucial role in the outlook of your essay. Below are some of the topic ideas you can consider.

Best Civil War essay topics

• What happened after the American Civil War?
• Why did the reconstruction fail after the civil war?
• What are the main causes of the Civil War?
• Describe strategies used in the American Civil War.
• Politically, what happened after Sri Lanka Civil War?
• Describe the 1991 Sierra Leone Civil war

American Civil War essay topics

• How did the civil war impact America today?
• Describe the Fort Pillow Massacre happening
• Industrialization in America after the civil war
• Did the U.S.A progress after unleashing a conflict that led to civil war?
• Analyze economic differences between Northern and southern states
• How does the American government perceive the civil war legacy?
• Analyze civil war and slavery in America

Essay topics on the Civil War

• What was the role of John Brown during the onset of the civil war?
• Describe the role of Fort Sumter in the civil war
• Analyze the early periods of the American civil war
• Based on historical events, how can we prevent civil war?
• Why did the American civil war last longer?
• Compare the American civil war and American Revolution
• What is the effect of the civil war on women’s efforts in America?

Essay writing is an art, and the best approach is to understand the topic and the subject as a whole before you start writing.

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Experiences of the U.S. Civil War, an introduction

There were as many experiences of the war as people who lived through it.

Left: Joel Emmons Whitney, Sioux woman and child at the prison camp at Fort Snelling, carte-de-visite, c. 1862–63, 10.1 x 6.2 cm ( Minnesota Historical Society ); right: Charles R. Rees, Unidentified woman (possibly Mrs. James Shields), in mourning dress and brooch showing Confederate soldier and holding young boy wearing kepi, c. 1861–65, hand-painted ambrotype in papier-mâché case with mother-of-pearl and hand painting, 8.0 x 6.9 cm ( Library of Congress )

Two family portraits from the Civil War era (1861–65) show a seated woman with a young child, gazing straight into the camera. The woman on the left, draped with a blanket and carrying her child on her back, is identified only as a “Sioux Squaw” and her child as a “Pappoose,” racist labels used by whites in that era that dehumanize Indigenous people. This portrait was taken by photographer Joel Emmons Whitney, who wanted to profit from the sale of pictures of the Santee Sioux people after the Dakota War of 1862 . This woman and child were living at a concentration camp at Fort Snelling, Minnesota, where more than 1,600 Sioux non-combatants were forced to remain over the winter of 1862–63. In the spring of 1863, the U.S. Congress voted to repeal all treaties with the Dakotas and confiscate their lands, forcing them to move to a reservation . [1]

The image on the right shows a white woman in mourning dress, with a brooch featuring the photograph of a Confederate soldier (presumably her husband and her child’s father) pinned to her dress. Her child wears a kepi , which may have belonged to the deceased soldier. This photograph was taken in a Richmond, Virginia studio, and its hand-colored accents and ornate case suggest the sitter’s wealth. 

The format of these photographs draws a contrast between the two families: the carte-de-visite of the Sioux woman and child was intended to be reproduced many times and sold inexpensively as a curiosity to whites interested in seeing people involved with the Dakota War, while the unique ambrotype of the Confederate widow and her child had a closing case designed for private viewing; protected with a latching cover, it was small enough to tuck into a breast pocket. 

Both of these families were profoundly affected by the Civil War. They remind us that the Civil War occurred over a vast country and involved a diverse population, so that capturing “the experience of the Civil War” is an impossible task: there were as many experiences as there were people who lived through it. Soldiers fought in deserts, swamps, mountain passes, orchards, and city streets. Families lived in refugee camps, farm houses, wagons, tepis (tepees), and splendid mansions. Workers made cartridges, built bridges, raised money, sawed off limbs, drove mules, and guarded prisons. 

The experiences of the Civil War in art

These myriad experiences can be difficult to access through the visual and material record of the war—the images and objects that represented everyday life in wartime. The visual record is slanted heavily toward certain groups and areas: northerners produced many more prints and photographs than southerners, for example, because the South was surrounded by a blockade that limited access to the supplies necessary for image-making. Location and wealth were also factors: although photographs were easier to obtain than ever before, not everyone could go to a studio to sit for their portrait, let alone pay for a painting. Like the Sioux family above, they may have appeared in images but often did not control the terms on which they were depicted. We have also lost a great deal of the war’s visual and material culture to time: we can see only what earlier generations decided to preserve, and their ideas of whose art was important enough to save may have differed from our own.

Left: Moore Bro’s. Photographic Gallery, Unidentified U.S. sailor in uniform in front of painted backdrop showing walkway and trees, c. 1861–65, albumen print on card ( Library of Congress ); right: Israel & Co., First Lieutenant Patrick Boyce of Co. F, 8th Regular Army Infantry Regiment in uniform with sword, c. 1861–65 ( Library of Congress )

Photographs provide the largest source of visual evidence about the people who lived through the Civil War, including untold numbers of portraits of soldiers. Although a few daguerreotypes were taken during the Mexican-American War , the Civil War was the first major conflict in the United States that took place after photography—which had been invented only 35 years earlier—became widely available, and enlisted men rushed to have their photographs taken in uniform. Scornful of their opponents’ abilities, both U.S. and Confederate soldiers believed that the war would be over in a few months, and they did not want to miss their chance to show they had been willing to do their duty.

The cartes-de-visite above, both taken during the war, show how recruits put the medium to use. The sailor had his photograph taken in a studio wearing his uniform, but in front of a generic painted backdrop that mimics a garden-like setting and reminiscent of the background often seen in painted portraits of the previous century. The backdrop hardly evokes life at sea, but in the scramble to take pictures before men set off for war, it provided for a suitably respectable portrait setting. The photograph at right shows U.S. Army Lieutenant Patrick Boyce in his officer’s uniform (including tasseled epaulets and sword) standing in front of a blank backdrop; on the back of the card, Boyce scrawled “Votre Amie” (“your friend”) and his signature as a token for a friend or sweetheart. Each of these men took advantage of the opportunity to have a photographic portrait made in uniform, representing his military prowess and social standing.

Unidentified Black U.S. soldier, c. 1861–65, hand-colored tintype with cover glass in black thermoplastic case with brass hinges and red velvet liner ( Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture )

For Black soldiers, sitting for a photographic portrait was not just a record of their bravery in volunteering to serve, but also a claim to citizenship, which was constantly called into question. In 1857, the Supreme Court had ruled that Black people were not citizens of the United States , and so when Black men enlisted in the U.S. Army during the Civil War they were signing up to fight for a nation that did not recognize them as citizens, hoping that their military service would lead not only to the destruction of slavery but to the recognition of Black citizenship.

Stamped brass uniform button with American eagle, c. 1861–65 ( Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture )

The Black soldier pictured above holds a pistol across his chest, his belt buckle proclaims his status as a “US” soldier (the image is reversed, so to the viewer it reads “SU”). The photograph was hand-colored (adding pink to the soldier’s cheeks and gold to his buttons and belt buckle) and encased in a frame with numerous symbols of U.S. citizenship and national belonging: an eagle perches above his head, with American flags and bayonets flanking him on each side. Below him is a cannon and a stylized ribbon with the Latin motto found on the Great Seal of the United States, E Pluribus Unum (“out of many, one”). A simplified version of the Great Seal was also reproduced on the uniform buttons of U.S. soldiers, one of which is pictured here: a bald eagle with its wings spread behind a shield, grasping an olive branch in one set of talons and arrows in the other. Frederick Douglass , who worked to recruit soldiers for Black regiments, understood the power and symbolism of the army uniform in changing minds, stated, “Once let the black man get upon his person the brass letters, U.S.; let him get an eagle on his button, and a musket on his shoulder and bullets in his pocket, and there is no power on earth which can deny that he has earned the right to citizenship.” [2]

Winslow Homer, Reconnaissance in force by General Gorman before Yorktown , 1862, graphite with brush and gray wash on cream wove paper, 21 x 33.7 cm ( Museum of Fine Arts, Boston )

Photography was far from the only way of capturing the experience of war. In the 1860s, newspapers could not yet reproduce photographs (the process to do so was not created until 1880), so “special artists” were sent to travel with armies to sketch the action. These artists mailed their drawings to newspaper offices so engravers could interpret them for mass distribution. In the drawing above, the hole where engravers tacked this piece of paper to the wall as a guide for copying is still visible near the top of Winslow Homer’s sketch of a scene of officers and enlisted men discussing strategy outside a farmhouse near Yorktown, later printed as part of a larger page of scenes illustrating the war. [3]

“Glorious News!!!!” in “A Few Scenes in the Life of A ‘SOJER’ in the Mass 44th,” 1863, graphite on paper, 10.5 x 20.5 cm ( Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History )

Some soldier-artists captured their experiences in drawings, completed while in camp or years afterward when recalling the scenes of battle. They used what materials were available to them: ink, watercolors, or even a pencil nub on a lined journal page. One unknown artist, a soldier in the 44th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry stationed in New Bern, North Carolina, drew a series of cartoons in his diary contrasting the northern press’s breathless coverage of the war with the far less romantic reality. In “Glorious News!!!! Destruction of a very Important Bridge in North Carolina!!” the artist showed a wooden plank over a creek being broken by a soldier throwing a rock at it, satirizing the scene with the overblown headline “The REBELS in DESPAIR!!!! Jeff Davis says All is now LOST!!!!!!!!!!” The simple set of panels reveals the humor and playfulness of an ordinary soldier, who wrote that he had to end his sketchbook because he ran out of paper. [4]

Bandolier bag, likely Delaware, wool, glass beads, cotton, fringe c. 1860 (The American Civil War Museum, photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Material culture can also tell us about the experience of the Civil War. This bandolier bag, which high-ranking Indigenous men would have worn across their bodies during ceremonies or in battle to carry ammunition, is made of tiny glass beads arranged in abstract floral patterns. This type of decoration is common to bags made in the Prairie Style , which flourished in the mid-19th century in Oklahoma, where many Indigenous groups, including Delawares and Cherokees, came into contact with each other after the United States forcibly removed them from their homes in the east in the 1830s. A female Indigenous artist likely made this bag, which was worn into battle by its owner, likely a Delaware soldier who was fighting as part of the U.S.-allied Indian Home Guard . After the owner’s death at the Battle of Honey Springs in Oklahoma, Confederate soldiers looted it from the owner’s body as a trophy and gave it to Confederate President Jefferson Davis as a gift.

The Battle of Honey Springs—despite the death of this bag’s owner—was an important victory for U.S. forces in their quest to gain control of Indian Territory . Indigenous tribes, nations, and bands fought for both the United States and the Confederacy in the Civil War, hoping their alliances would preserve their sovereignty. The bag’s creation in Oklahoma and its journey to the capital of the Confederacy hint at the complex story of the Civil War, where the future of westward expansion , cultural transformation, and the survival of people and nations were at stake. 

The essays in this section grapple with these complex experiences of the war—both on and off the battlefield—through art. 

The first essay, “ The work of war ,” focuses on images depicting the everyday life of the soldiers and civilians who labored for the military during the U.S. Civil War.   

The second essay, “ Homes and families ,” examines how the “home front” was not easy to distinguish from the battlefront during the conflict, as women’s roles transformed with the advent of war.

The third essay, “ Refugees, prisoners, and displacement ,” looks beyond the battlefield and the home front to the people who moved across and outside those spaces, either by choice or by force.

[1] See more on The U.S.-Dakota War of 1862 from the Minnesota Historical Society.

[2] Frederick Douglass, “Should the Negro Enlist in the Union Army?,” speech delivered July 6, 1863, at National Hall, Philadelphia, PA, published in Douglass’ Monthly , August 1863.

[3] Frank H. Goodyear III and Dana E. Byrd, Winslow Homer and the Camera: Photography and the Art of Painting (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018), pp. 10–11.

[4] A Few Scenes in the life of A “SOJER” in the Mass 44th , 1863, graphite on paper, 10.5 x 20.5 cm (The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History).

Additional resources

American Indian Removal: What Does It Mean to Remove a People? from the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian

U.S.-Dakota War of 1862 from the Minnesota Historical Society

The Battle of Honey Springs from the Oklahoma Historical Society

Civil War Soldier Stories from the Library of Congress

The Civil War and American Art from the Smithsonian American Art Museum

Amy Athey McDonald, “ As embedded artist with the Union army, Winslow Homer captured life at the front of the Civil War ,” Yale News , April 20, 2015.

Lisa Tendrich Frank, Household War: How Americans Lived and Fought the Civil War (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2020).

James G. Mendez, A Great Sacrifice: Northern Black Soldiers, Their Families, and the Experience of Civil War (New York: Fordham University Press, 2019).

Megan Kate Nelson, Ruin Nation: Destruction and the American Civil War (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2012).

Amy Murrell Taylor, Embattled Freedom: Journeys through the Civil War’s Slave Refugee Camps (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2018).

More on the experiences of the U.S. Civil War

• Experiences of the war, an introduction
• The work of war
• Homes and families
• Refugees, prisoners, and displacement
• Winslow Homer, "The Army of the Potomac—A Sharpshooter on Picket Duty"
• Photographing the Battle of Gettysburg: Timothy O'Sullivan's A Harvest of Death
• Slavery at the West Point of the Confederacy: The Little Round House
• Winslow Homer, Army Teamsters
• John Quincy Adams Ward, The Freedman
• Eastman Johnson, A Ride for Liberty—The Fugitive Slaves
• Science, Religion, and Politics: Church's Cotopaxi

learning resources

• Discussion questions
• Image gallery

Explore the diverse history of the United States through its art. Seeing America is funded by the Terra Foundation for American Art and the Alice L. Walton Foundation.

Your donations help make art history free and accessible to everyone!

Civil War Essays

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How to write an introduction for a history essay

Every essay needs to begin with an introductory paragraph. It needs to be the first paragraph the marker reads.

While your introduction paragraph might be the first of the paragraphs you write, this is not the only way to do it.

You can choose to write your introduction after you have written the rest of your essay.

This way, you will know what you have argued, and this might make writing the introduction easier.

Either approach is fine. If you do write your introduction first, ensure that you go back and refine it once you have completed your essay. 

What is an ‘introduction paragraph’?

An introductory paragraph is a single paragraph at the start of your essay that prepares your reader for the argument you are going to make in your body paragraphs .

It should provide all of the necessary historical information about your topic and clearly state your argument so that by the end of the paragraph, the marker knows how you are going to structure the rest of your essay.

In general, you should never use quotes from sources in your introduction.

Introduction paragraph structure

While your introduction paragraph does not have to be as long as your body paragraphs , it does have a specific purpose, which you must fulfil.

A well-written introduction paragraph has the following four-part structure (summarised by the acronym BHES).

B – Background sentences

H – Hypothesis

E – Elaboration sentences

S - Signpost sentence

Each of these elements are explained in further detail, with examples, below:

1. Background sentences

The first two or three sentences of your introduction should provide a general introduction to the historical topic which your essay is about. This is done so that when you state your hypothesis , your reader understands the specific point you are arguing about.

Background sentences explain the important historical period, dates, people, places, events and concepts that will be mentioned later in your essay. This information should be drawn from your background research . 

Example background sentences:

Middle Ages (Year 8 Level)

Castles were an important component of Medieval Britain from the time of the Norman conquest in 1066 until they were phased out in the 15 th and 16 th centuries. Initially introduced as wooden motte and bailey structures on geographical strongpoints, they were rapidly replaced by stone fortresses which incorporated sophisticated defensive designs to improve the defenders’ chances of surviving prolonged sieges.

WWI (Year 9 Level)

The First World War began in 1914 following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The subsequent declarations of war from most of Europe drew other countries into the conflict, including Australia. The Australian Imperial Force joined the war as part of Britain’s armed forces and were dispatched to locations in the Middle East and Western Europe.

Civil Rights (Year 10 Level)

The 1967 Referendum sought to amend the Australian Constitution in order to change the legal standing of the indigenous people in Australia. The fact that 90% of Australians voted in favour of the proposed amendments has been attributed to a series of significant events and people who were dedicated to the referendum’s success.

Ancient Rome (Year 11/12 Level)  

In the late second century BC, the Roman novus homo Gaius Marius became one of the most influential men in the Roman Republic. Marius gained this authority through his victory in the Jugurthine War, with his defeat of Jugurtha in 106 BC, and his triumph over the invading Germanic tribes in 101 BC, when he crushed the Teutones at the Battle of Aquae Sextiae (102 BC) and the Cimbri at the Battle of Vercellae (101 BC). Marius also gained great fame through his election to the consulship seven times.

2. Hypothesis

Once you have provided historical context for your essay in your background sentences, you need to state your hypothesis .

A hypothesis is a single sentence that clearly states the argument that your essay will be proving in your body paragraphs .

A good hypothesis contains both the argument and the reasons in support of your argument. 

Example hypotheses:

Medieval castles were designed with features that nullified the superior numbers of besieging armies but were ultimately made obsolete by the development of gunpowder artillery.

Australian soldiers’ opinion of the First World War changed from naïve enthusiasm to pessimistic realism as a result of the harsh realities of modern industrial warfare.

The success of the 1967 Referendum was a direct result of the efforts of First Nations leaders such as Charles Perkins, Faith Bandler and the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders.

Gaius Marius was the most one of the most significant personalities in the 1 st century BC due to his effect on the political, military and social structures of the Roman state.

3. Elaboration sentences

Once you have stated your argument in your hypothesis , you need to provide particular information about how you’re going to prove your argument.

Your elaboration sentences should be one or two sentences that provide specific details about how you’re going to cover the argument in your three body paragraphs.

You might also briefly summarise two or three of your main points.

Finally, explain any important key words, phrases or concepts that you’ve used in your hypothesis, you’ll need to do this in your elaboration sentences.

Example elaboration sentences:

By the height of the Middle Ages, feudal lords were investing significant sums of money by incorporating concentric walls and guard towers to maximise their defensive potential. These developments were so successful that many medieval armies avoided sieges in the late period.

Following Britain's official declaration of war on Germany, young Australian men voluntarily enlisted into the army, which was further encouraged by government propaganda about the moral justifications for the conflict. However, following the initial engagements on the Gallipoli peninsula, enthusiasm declined.

The political activity of key indigenous figures and the formation of activism organisations focused on indigenous resulted in a wider spread of messages to the general Australian public. The generation of powerful images and speeches has been frequently cited by modern historians as crucial to the referendum results.

While Marius is best known for his military reforms, it is the subsequent impacts of this reform on the way other Romans approached the attainment of magistracies and how public expectations of military leaders changed that had the longest impacts on the late republican period.

4. Signpost sentence

The final sentence of your introduction should prepare the reader for the topic of your first body paragraph. The main purpose of this sentence is to provide cohesion between your introductory paragraph and you first body paragraph .

Therefore, a signpost sentence indicates where you will begin proving the argument that you set out in your hypothesis and usually states the importance of the first point that you’re about to make. 

Example signpost sentences:

The early development of castles is best understood when examining their military purpose.

The naïve attitudes of those who volunteered in 1914 can be clearly seen in the personal letters and diaries that they themselves wrote.

The significance of these people is evident when examining the lack of political representation the indigenous people experience in the early half of the 20 th century.

The origin of Marius’ later achievements was his military reform in 107 BC, which occurred when he was first elected as consul.

Putting it all together

Once you have written all four parts of the BHES structure, you should have a completed introduction paragraph. In the examples above, we have shown each part separately. Below you will see the completed paragraphs so that you can appreciate what an introduction should look like.

Example introduction paragraphs: 

Castles were an important component of Medieval Britain from the time of the Norman conquest in 1066 until they were phased out in the 15th and 16th centuries. Initially introduced as wooden motte and bailey structures on geographical strongpoints, they were rapidly replaced by stone fortresses which incorporated sophisticated defensive designs to improve the defenders’ chances of surviving prolonged sieges. Medieval castles were designed with features that nullified the superior numbers of besieging armies, but were ultimately made obsolete by the development of gunpowder artillery. By the height of the Middle Ages, feudal lords were investing significant sums of money by incorporating concentric walls and guard towers to maximise their defensive potential. These developments were so successful that many medieval armies avoided sieges in the late period. The early development of castles is best understood when examining their military purpose.

The First World War began in 1914 following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The subsequent declarations of war from most of Europe drew other countries into the conflict, including Australia. The Australian Imperial Force joined the war as part of Britain’s armed forces and were dispatched to locations in the Middle East and Western Europe. Australian soldiers’ opinion of the First World War changed from naïve enthusiasm to pessimistic realism as a result of the harsh realities of modern industrial warfare. Following Britain's official declaration of war on Germany, young Australian men voluntarily enlisted into the army, which was further encouraged by government propaganda about the moral justifications for the conflict. However, following the initial engagements on the Gallipoli peninsula, enthusiasm declined. The naïve attitudes of those who volunteered in 1914 can be clearly seen in the personal letters and diaries that they themselves wrote.

The 1967 Referendum sought to amend the Australian Constitution in order to change the legal standing of the indigenous people in Australia. The fact that 90% of Australians voted in favour of the proposed amendments has been attributed to a series of significant events and people who were dedicated to the referendum’s success. The success of the 1967 Referendum was a direct result of the efforts of First Nations leaders such as Charles Perkins, Faith Bandler and the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders. The political activity of key indigenous figures and the formation of activism organisations focused on indigenous resulted in a wider spread of messages to the general Australian public. The generation of powerful images and speeches has been frequently cited by modern historians as crucial to the referendum results. The significance of these people is evident when examining the lack of political representation the indigenous people experience in the early half of the 20th century.

In the late second century BC, the Roman novus homo Gaius Marius became one of the most influential men in the Roman Republic. Marius gained this authority through his victory in the Jugurthine War, with his defeat of Jugurtha in 106 BC, and his triumph over the invading Germanic tribes in 101 BC, when he crushed the Teutones at the Battle of Aquae Sextiae (102 BC) and the Cimbri at the Battle of Vercellae (101 BC). Marius also gained great fame through his election to the consulship seven times. Gaius Marius was the most one of the most significant personalities in the 1st century BC due to his effect on the political, military and social structures of the Roman state. While Marius is best known for his military reforms, it is the subsequent impacts of this reform on the way other Romans approached the attainment of magistracies and how public expectations of military leaders changed that had the longest impacts on the late republican period. The origin of Marius’ later achievements was his military reform in 107 BC, which occurred when he was first elected as consul.

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American Civil War Causes Analysis Essay

Introduction, works cited.

The American Civil War has been a subject of intense study by historians, political scientists and scholars over the years. The reasons which led to the civil war are many but some historians have favored the approach that sectional divisions or political divisions were the main causes which led to the war. David M. Potter is the proponent of the former approach while Michael F. Holt favors the latter. This essay aims to explain the main points of the argument of both the scholars with a view at arriving at an objective analysis of the most likely causes for the American Civil War.

Potter believes that the main cause for the country to divide into two sections was over the issues of slavery, taxation of imports and exports and the assumption of state debts amongst other aspects of governance. Potter states that “From the outset, slavery had been the most serious cause of sectional conflict” (Potter, p. 378). While the Northern states had abolished slavery, the Southern states propounded it as their right. Within these two opposing views, lay the role of the Federal government, which had to consider whether the question of slavery was to be decided by the Federal government or be left to the states. Through the years 1846 to 1861, debates raged all over America to decide the validity of each view. These arguments crystallized into four main formulae.

The first position was formulated by David Wilmot who opined that the Congress had the power to abolish slavery leading to the declaration of the Ordinance of 1787, also known as the Wilmot Proviso stating that “There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted” (Potter, p. 379). Based on the Wilmot Proviso, Presidents Washington, John Adams, Jefferson, Monroe and Jackson held that the Congress had constitutional powers to prohibit slavery in all territories. The Congress however, did not uniformly apply this principle to all territories, allowing some territories to the South of the Ohio River to maintain slavery rights while abolishing the same to the North.

Consequently, a compromise between the proslavery and antislavery interests based on territorial divisions became the second formula for resolving the dispute. This approach typified the admittance of Missouri as a slave state and dividing the rest of the Louisiana Purchase along latitude 36 o 30’ to the North being slavery free. This ‘Missouri Compromise’, according to Potter, was free of ambiguity even if philosophically and morally untenable as each side knew what it would gain or lose.

The third formulation was the doctrine of ‘popular sovereignty’. According to this doctrine, the citizens of a state would decide whether they wished to abolish slavery or not. This doctrine was very popular as it allowed Northern states to abolish slavery and the Southern states to affirm their slavery rights.

The fourth formula rejected the Congress’s right to regulate slavery in the territories and stated that the Constitution did not give the Congress such powers. The Constitution gave equal rights to all citizens and thus those who had slave properties could not be discriminated against those who did not wish to possess such properties. Potter argues that the Doctrine that the Congress “could neither exclude slavery from a territory itself nor grant power to a territorial government” (Potter, p. 383) to do so became the main element of Southern unity which led to the civil war.

Michael Holt on the other hand argues that slavery was not the main cause but it was the need to reform the political system and restore republicanism which was the main reason for the war. According to Holt, political theory dictates that in a two party system it is important for the parties to have opponents with clearly defined positions. In the early 1850s the two party systems had collapsed as the two parties namely the Federalists and the Jeffersonian increasingly took consensual stand on issues. Thus, the society now had to look for third party alternatives to carry forth issues that were dear to them but were not being taken up t by the old two party systems. This destruction of the old two party systems and the search for the new two party systems was in great part, responsible for civil war to take place.

The old two party systems had survived for so long because of federalism. Holt argues that “most legislation that affected every day lives of people was enacted at state capitals and not at Washington” (Holt 389). Thus, as the old two party system disintegrated and newer parties emerged, the framework of the new two party system namely the Democrats and Republicans varied from state to state. This varied response to positions to be taken on the issue of slavery gave rise to inconsistencies amongst the Democrats within their states as also amongst the Republicans within their respective states. During the reign of the old two party systems, the federal system had ensured precise divisions of issues of national and state importance which ensured that citizens could identify with their problems and have them addressed by the respective state unit, while national issues were tackled at Washington by the state representatives. When the federal system weakened and the new parties still in a nascent state, Holt opines that state and national issues remained blurred. This led to sectional extremism in the Deep South “because no new framework of two-party competition had appeared there as it had in the North and upper South” (Holt, p. 387).

Holt’s thesis appears to be built on political theoretical grounds while the postulates of Potter seem grounded in the practical pragmatic approach stating actual events of those times. Undoubtedly, the causes of the American Civil war, despite dense political theorization, resulted primarily due to the opposition of the American citizens to the immoral precepts of slavery. Potter’s analysis is event based with rich examples of actual incidences and discussion of legislations enacted by federal and state authorities of those times which give a more plausible explanation of the causes of the American Civil War. Holt’s formulation though attractive from the viewpoint of political theory is not substantiated with illustrative examples as has been put forth by Potter. Analysis of both the essays reveals that Potter’s thesis that sectional divisions due to differences on the question of slavery and its ramifications on individual, state and federal rights were the most likely causes of the American Civil War holds greater logical appeal than does Holt’s theory of Political Divisions.

• Holt, Michael F. “The Political Divisions That Contributed to Civil War.” Cobbs, Elizabeth. Major Problems in American History. Boston: Houghton Muffin, 2006.
• Potter, David M. “The Sectional Divisions That Led to Civil War.” Cobbs, Elizabeth. Major Problems in American History. Boston: Houghton Muffin, 2006.
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2024, February 27). American Civil War Causes Analysis. https://ivypanda.com/essays/american-civil-war-causes-analysis/

"American Civil War Causes Analysis." IvyPanda , 27 Feb. 2024, ivypanda.com/essays/american-civil-war-causes-analysis/.

IvyPanda . (2024) 'American Civil War Causes Analysis'. 27 February.

IvyPanda . 2024. "American Civil War Causes Analysis." February 27, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/american-civil-war-causes-analysis/.

1. IvyPanda . "American Civil War Causes Analysis." February 27, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/american-civil-war-causes-analysis/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "American Civil War Causes Analysis." February 27, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/american-civil-war-causes-analysis/.

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Civil War, 1861-1865

Introduction, primary sources, civil war, 1861-1865: introduction.

The American Civil War from 1861 through 1865 is sometimes described as the crucible from which the nation was forged. The cost to the States, north and south, in blood and treasure, is almost inconceivable. This one war accounted for nearly half of all casualties the United States has suffered since its formation.

From the beginning of the war with the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter, SC, April 12, 1861, to the last battle at Palmito Ranch, Texas, May 13, 1865, the number of lives lost in battle, in prison camps, from disease and exposure, and through causes directly related to the war reached staggering proportions. (See the National Park Service Website for an informative presentation of facts about the war.)

The Battle of Opequon of Winchester, 1864

This Library Guide will provide a staring point and information to aid in your research about the Civil War.

Books at Rowan

All Books at Rowan

To find books use Rowan's Library Search and limit the material type to Books. You can do this either from the Advanced Search page (use the Material Type drop-down menu on the right) or from a search results page (use the Resource Type limiter).  

Select E-Books at RU

• Ebook Central ebook collection This link opens in a new window Collection of scholarly e-books in many academic disciplines. more... less... Multidisciplinary collection of scholarly ebooks, offering a strong collection of academic titles from leading scholarly publishers. Includes subscribed and purchased content. It is not a permanent acquisition of e-books, and is subject to change.

See search tips on e-Book Central's homepage.

Library of Congress Classification (LCC) - Civil War

The library organizes its materials using the Library of Congress Classification System (LCC). The classication ranges below also relate to period immediately preceding the onset of Civil War military action. In this classification system the letter "E" represents all United States History.

Civil War Primary Sources

• Accessible Archives This link opens in a new window Select the subcollections The Civil War, Parts I-VII. more... less... Accessible Archives makes available vast quantities of archived historical information, not previously furnished available online. Primary source materials have been assembled into databases with a strict attention to detail allowing access to specific information with pinpoint accuracy. Online full-text search capabilities and digital imaging permits the user to search and manipulate this information in ways never before possible.
• African American Newspapers, Series 1 This link opens in a new window Online access to 270 African American newspapers published in the U.S. from 1827-1998. more... less... Provides online access to approximately 270 U.S. newspapers chronicling a century and a half of the African American experience. This unique collection features papers from more than 35 states—including many rare and historically significant 19th century titles.
• American Antiquarian Society Historical Periodicals Collection 1684 - 1912 This link opens in a new window Access to historical periodicals published from 1684 to1912.
• American Civil War Research Database Photographs and information on over soldiers and battles, regimental rosters, officer profiles
• American Civil War Letters and Diaries
• American History This link opens in a new window Online encyclopedia of American history. more... less... Spans more than 500 years of political, military, social, and cultural history, highlighting the important people and events of the American experience. Includes biographies, events and topics, primary sources, timelines, images and videos, maps and charts. All full text.
• American Indian History This link opens in a new window Online encyclopedia of the history of the American Indian. more... less... Offers access to more than 600 Native American groups and over 15,000 years of American Indian culture and history.
• American Women's History Online This link opens in a new window Online encyclopedia of the history of women in the United States. more... less... Covers the important people, events, legislation, and issues relevant to the study of women's history in the United States. Includes biographies, events and topics, primary sources, time-lines, images and videos, maps and charts. All full text.
• Black Abolitionist Papers This link opens in a new window Primary sources from African Americans actively involved in the movement to end slavery in the United States between 1830 and 1865.
• Civil War Collection This link opens in a new window Online archive of newspaper articles published in and books during the U.S. Civil War. more... less... Contains the full text of major articles gleaned from over 2,500 issues of The New York Herald, The Charleston Mercury and the Richmond Enquirer, published between November 1, 1860 and April 15, 1865. Included are descriptive news articles, eye-witness accounts and official reports of battles and events, editorials, advertisements and biographies.
• History Vault: Southern Life, Slavery, and the Civil War This link opens in a new window Primary source materials candidly documenting the realities of slavery at the most immediate grassroots level in Southern society and provides some of the most revealing documentation in existence on the functioning of the slave system.
• Proquest Civil War Era Civil War era newspapers, pamphlets, and other primary source material
• Reconstruction and Military Government after the Civil War (1865-1877)

Web Resources

• American History: From Revolution to Reconstruction and Beyond The documents tab on the American History website includes documents originating beyond the borders and before the establishment of the United States, but all are related to the history of the country and are very interesting. The site also includes other tabs with a wealth of information and it is worth a visit.
• The Civil War: The Nation Moves Towards War (1850-1861) Conflict between abolition and slavery marked the 1850s, preceding the election of 1860 and the attack on Fort Sumter. The Kansas-Nebraska Act, Dred Scott, Harriet Beecher Stowe, John Brown, and secession in maps, newspapers, political cartoons and song sheets. Part of the Library of Congress Primary Source Sets.
• Civil War Women (Duke University)
• Colonial North America at Harvard Library Archival and manuscript materials related to 17th- and 18th-century North America from Harvard Library
• Crisis of the Union: Causes, Conduct and Consequences of the US Civil War (Univ. of Pennsylvania) Print memorabilia about the United States from 1830 to 1880
• Library of Congress Civil War Collection
• Military Records - Civil War (National Archives, U.S.)
• Pennsylvania Civil War Era Newspaper Collection (Penn State)
• The Southern Homefront, 1861-1865 (UNC-Chapel Hill)
• Valley of the Shadow Archive (Univ. of Virginia) Primary sources from two communities in the American Civil War

More Primary Sources

• Accessible Archives This link opens in a new window Archives of searchable historical primary source materials. See the Subcollections Guide for a list of collections. more... less... Accessible Archives makes available vast quantities of archived historical information, not previously furnished available online. Primary source materials have been assembled into databases with a strict attention to detail allowing access to specific information with pinpoint accuracy. Online full-text search capabilities and digital imaging permits the user to search and manipulate this information in ways never before possible.
• Avalon Project The Avalon Project, a resource of the Yale Law School, provides full text of documents, online, that are important to law, history and diplomacy online. Over the years the collection has grown extensively and has been organized into various topical areas. About forty documents related to Terrorism are included under this title.
• New York Public Library Digital Gallery Digital historical collections from the New York Public Library. more... less... Collections include Africana and Black History, from 16th Century to Present; After Columbus: 400 Years of Native American Portraiture; Turn of the Century Posters; Picturing America, 1497-1899; Prints, Maps, and Drawings Bearing on the New World; A New Nation: The Thomas Addis Emmet Collection of Illustrations Relating to the American Revolution and Early US History.
• New York Times (ProQuest Historical Newspapers) This link opens in a new window Access to The New York Times (1851 - 2017). more... less... Presents PDF pages of the newspaper, preserving the visual sense of the publication. This online format replaces the microfiche archival coverage.
• Nineteenth Century Collections Online (Gale Primary Sources) This link opens in a new window Primary source materials about the Nineteenth Century. See the Subcollections Guide for a list of collections. more... less... Includes books, newspapers, periodicals, diaries and personal letters, manuscripts, photographs, pamphlets, maps and musical scores.
• North American Slave Narratives Part of Documenting the American South, "includes all known autobiographical narratives of fugitive and former slaves in the United States to 1920."
• Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery: Online Exhibits American portraits in public and private collections in the US and abroad.
• Sunday Times Historical Archive (Gale Primary Sources) This link opens in a new window Archive of the London newspaper The Sunday Times 1822 - 2016. more... less... Thoughtful analysis and commentary on the week's news and society at large.
• Times Digital Archive (Gale Primary Sources) This link opens in a new window Archive of The Times (London) newspaper from 1785-2019. more... less... Spans over 220 years, from 1785 through 2014, and includes 1+ million pages and 7+ million articles. Search the complete digital edition of The Times (London) using keyword searching and hit-term highlighting to retrieve full images of either a specific article or a complete page. The entire newspaper is captured, with all articles, advertisements and illustrations/photos divided into categories to facilitate searching. View contemporaneous coverage of the world's historical events from the French Revolution to the Iraq War.
• Wall Street Journal (ProQuest Historical Newspapers) This link opens in a new window Online access to back issues of the Wall Street Journal, 1889 - 1999. more... less... Newspaper coverage is from 1889 through 1996. For more recent issues of the Wall Street Journal, select the Wall Street Journal (current) link.
• Washington Post (ProQuest Historical Newspapers) This link opens in a new window Online access to back issues of The Washington Post, 1877-1999. more... less... Includes PDF images of nearly all content published in the Washington Post from the beginning, 1877, through 1997. Search the Washington Post Current edition for information after this end date.

Streaming Video

Abraham Lincoln: An Extraordinary Life: Presented By Richard Carwardine, Oxford University and made available trough the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.

YouTube Videos

American Experience: Robert E. Lee

(Click "Watch on YouTube.com" for link to the complete film on PBS)

YouTube Videos: Documentaries

(Part of a five-part 1987  Arts & Entertainment TV Series)

Scenes from American History (Part 5): A House Divided

[United States Information Service (USIS), 1960]

Battle of Gettysburg

(History Channel, 2011)

Antietam: A Documentary Film

(Historical Films Group, 2000. Narrated by James Earl Jones. Filmed at Antietam National Battlefield and produced in cooperation with The Civil War Trust.)

Civil War Journal: The Battle of Fredericksburg

(History Channel, 1993)

Causes of the Civil War: Part 1

Causes of the Civil War: Part 2

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The U.S. Civil War: A Very Short Introduction

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The US Civil War: A Very Short Introduction covers a period in American history characterized by decades of intensifying conflict over slavery and government authority, culminating in Abraham Lincoln’s election and eleven states seceding from the Union. The Civil War began as a limited conflict with the aim of restoring the Union. It became a diffuse, violent war that lasted four years, claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, and ultimately led to the abolition of slavery and a vigorous debate over the terms by which the seceded states would be restored to the nation. This VSI ends with a chapter on the aftermath of the war and the remaking of America.

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Nineteenth-Century Saints at War

Robert c. freeman , editor, introduction to the civil war, david f. boone.

“Introduction to the Civil War,” in Nineteenth-Century Saints at War , ed. Robert C. Freeman (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2006), 77–79

“We failed, but in the good providence of God apparent failure often proves a blessing.”— Robert E. Lee

The Civil War was a complex conflict that took this nation through its darkest period. The complexity of the Civil War involved every facet of life. The war tore at the heart of what America stood for. It cut to the very core of the political, economic, and social elements of American life. The argument centered on where ultimate sovereignty lay—whether with the Union or with the individual states. It questioned the economic and social structure basis in slave power and agriculture in the South and the wealth of the North. The Civil War is remembered as the war that pitted brother against brother because of the brutal nature of the tensions at work.

In the words of then secretary of state William H. Seward, the Civil War was the “irrepressible conflict.” It has also been deemed an unnecessary bloodletting brought on by arrogant extremists and blundering politicians. Regardless of opinions, in 1861 the nation faced the very real prospect of a war that could undermine everything America stood for.

Causes of the war were many and had developed over decades, but the immediate spark for the conflict was a consequence of South Carolina’s determination to secede from the Union—a result of Abraham Lincoln’s victory in the 1860 presidential election. South Carolina leaders had been waiting for an event to unite the South against antislavery forces. At a special convention called in South Carolina, a declaration was passed declaring that the United States of America was dissolved.

By February 1861, six Southern states had joined South Carolina in seceding. A provisional constitution for the Confederate States of America was adopted that month. The remaining Southern states continued residence with the Union. Less than a month later, on March 4, 1861, Abraham Lincoln was sworn in as president of the United States. In Lincoln’s inaugural address, he refused to recognize the secession; he considered it legally void. He concluded his speech with a plea for restoration of the Union. However, in the South Lincoln’s plea fell on deaf ears. On April 12, the fighting began when Confederate forces fired on federal troops stationed at Fort Sumter in the Charleston harbor.

As a result, Union troops marched under the command of Major General Irvin McDowell toward the Confederate forces at Manassas, Virginia. The Union was blocked, and the first battle of Bull Run ensued. The Confederate troops, under the command of General Jopseh E. Johnston and Pierre G. T. Beauregard, forced Union troops back to Washington DC. Startled at the loss, and in an attempt to prevent the remaining slave states from leaving the Union, the United States Congress passed the Crittenden-Johnson Resolution on July 25, 1861. It declared that the war was being fought to preserve the Union, not to end slavery.

The war began in earnest in 1862. General Ulysses S. Grant brought the Union its first victory; he captured Fort Henry, Tennessee, on February 6 of that year. However, this victory was short lived. Major General George McClellan, of the Union, reached the gates of Richmond in the spring of 1862 only to be defeated by General Robert E. Lee in the Seven Days Campaign. After this defeat, McClellan was relieved of command. His successor, John Pope, suffered the same fate when Lee beat him at the Second Battle of Bull Run in August.

Encouraged by Lee’s success, the Confederacy invaded the North for the first time. General Lee led fifty-five thousand men of the Army of Northern Virginia across the Potomac into Maryland on September 5. Lincoln then reinstated McClellan, who won a bloody victory at the Battle of Antietam near Sharpsburg, Maryland, on September 17, 1862. Defeated, Lee’s army returned to Virginia.

When McClellan failed to follow up on Antietam, Lincoln once again found a replacement: Major General Ambrose Burnside. Burnside suffered a near-immediate defeat at the Battle of Fredericksburg and was replaced by Major General Joseph Hooker. Hooker also proved insufficient to Lee’s army and was replaced after the loss of the Battle of Chancellorsville in May 1863.

Lincoln found an able replacement in Major General George Meade, who stopped Lee’s invasion of Union-held territory at the Battle of Gettysburg (July 1–3, 1863). General Lee’s army suffered twenty-eight thousand casualties and was forced to retreat again to Virginia.

While the Confederate forces had some success in the eastern theater—holding on to their capital—the west was their downfall. Confederate forces were driven from Missouri early in the war, which allowed the Union to maintain possession of that key strategic state.

Nashville, Tennessee, fell to the Union early in 1862. The Mississippi River was opened to Vicksburg and then to Memphis. New Orleans was also captured early in 1862, allowing the Union forces to begin moving up the Mississippi.

The Union’s strength increased with the strategic mind of Ulysses S. Grant. His gift was proven with the victories of Fort Donelson, the Battle of Shiloh, Vicksburg, Mississippi, and Chattanooga, Tennessee, where he drove Confederate forces out of Tennessee. Grant understood the concept of total war and realized, along with Lincoln, that only the utter defeat of Confederate forces would bring an end to the war. Grant was given command of all Union armies in 1864.

Union forces in the East attempted to maneuver past Lee and fought several battles during that phase of the eastern campaign: the Battle of the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, and Cold Harbor. An attempt to outflank Lee from the South failed under Generals Benjamin F. Butler and William F. Smith, who were contained in the Bermuda Hundred, a neck of land near the James and Appomattox rivers.

General Grant relentlessly pressed the Army of Northern Virginia under the command of General Lee. Grant pinned the Confederate army in the Siege of Petersburg and, after two failed attempts (under Siegel and Hunter), finally found an able commander, Philip H. Sheridan, who could clear the threat to Washington DC from the Shenandoah Valley.

Meanwhile, Union General William Tecumseh Sherman marched from Chattanooga to the sea at Savannah, leaving nothing in his wake but destruction and ashes. He stuck to his statement that he gave shortly before beginning his brutal march: “War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.” When Sherman turned north through South and North Carolina to approach the Virginia lines from the south, it was the end for Lee and the Confederacy.

With Lee’s surrender on April 9, 1865, at Appomattox Courthouse, the Union formally became the victor in the conflict. The last land battle of the war, the Battle of Palmito Ranch, was fought on May 13, 1865, in the far south of Texas and ended with a Confederate victory. However, the victory was meaningless because of Lee’s surrender. All Confederate land forces surrendered by June 1865. Confederate naval units surrendered in November of 1865.

Despite the end of the war, conflict still existed. The post-war Reconstruction Era, headed by Grant, who was elected President, would confront many obstacles, including persistent Southern resistance. Illustrative of the resistance were the “Jim Crow” laws, which essentially legalized racial discrimination. Decades of struggle followed, leading to an appeal for equality and unity in the nation. In a sense, the struggle for “one nation under God” has never ceased.

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Introductory Essay: Slavery and the Struggle for Abolition from the Colonial Period to the Civil War

How did the principles of the Declaration of Independence contribute to the quest to end slavery from colonial times to the outbreak of the Civil War?

• I can explain how slavery became codifed over time in the United States.
• I can explain how Founding principles in the Declaration of Independence strengthened anti-slavery thought and action.
• I can explain how territorial expansion intensified the national debate over slavery.
• I can explain various ways in which African Americans secured their own liberty from the colonial era to the Civil War.
• I can explain how African American leaders worked for the cause of abolition and equality.

Essential Vocabulary

Slavery and the struggle for abolition from the colonial period to the civil war.

The English established their first permanent settler colony in a place they called Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607. Early seventeenth-century Virginia was abundant in land and scarce in laborers. Initially, the labor need was met mostly by propertyless English men and women who came to the new world as indentured servants hoping to become landowners themselves after their term of service ended. Such servitude was generally the status, too, of Africans in early British America, the first of whom were brought to Virginia by a Dutch vessel in 1619. But within a few decades, indentured servitude in the colonies gave way to lifelong, hereditary slavery, imposed exclusively on black Africans.

Because forced labor (whether indentured servitude or slavery) was a longstanding and common condition, the injustice of slavery troubled relatively few settlers during the colonial period. Southern colonies in particular codified slavery into law. Slavery became hereditary, with men, women, and children bought and sold as property, a condition known as chattel slavery . Opposition to slavery was mainly concentrated among Quakers , who believed in the equality of all men and women and therefore opposed slavery on moral grounds. Quaker opposition to slavery was seen as early as 1688, when a group of Quakers submitted a formal protest against the institution for discussion at a local meeting.

Anti-slavery sentiment strengthened during the era of the Revolution and Founding. Founding principles, based on natural law proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence and in several state constitutions, added philosophical force to biblically grounded ideas of human equality and dignity. Those principles informed free and enslaved blacks, including Prince Hall, Elizabeth Freeman, Quock Walker, and Belinda Sutton, who sent anti slavery petitions to state legislatures. Their powerful appeal to natural rights moved legislators and judges to implement the first wave of emancipation in the United States. Immediate emancipation in Massachusetts, gradual emancipation in other northern states, and private manumission in the upper South dealt blows against slavery and freed tens of thousands of people.

Slavery remained deeply entrenched and thousands remained enslaved, however, in states in both the upper and lower South , even as northern leaders believed the practice was on its way to extinction. The result was the set of compromises the Framers inscribed into the U.S. Constitution—lending slavery important protections but also preparing for its eventual abolition. The Constitution did not use the word “slave” or “slavery,” instead referring to those enslaved as “persons.” James Madison, the “father” of the Constitution, thus thought the document implicitly denied the legitimacy of a claim of property in another human being. The Constitution also restricted slavery’s growth by allowing Congress to ban the slave trade after 20 years. Out of those compromises grew extended controversies, however, the most heated and dangerous of which concerned the treatment of fugitive slaves and the status of slavery in federal territories.

The invention of the cotton gin in 1793 renewed and enhanced slavery’s profitability and expansion, which intensified both attachment and opposition to it. The first major flare-up occurred in 1819, when a dispute over whether Missouri would be admitted to the Union as a slave state or a free state generated threats of civil war among members of Congress. The adoption of the Missouri Compromise in 1820 quelled the anger for a time. But the dispute was reignited in the 1830s and continued to inflame the country’s political life through the Civil War.

A cotton gin on display at the Eli Whitney Museum by Tom Murphy VII, 2007.

“U.S. Cotton Production 1790–1834” by Bill of Rights Institute/Flickr, CC BY 4.0

Separating the sticky seeds from cotton fiber was slow, painstaking work. Eli Whitney’s cotton gin (gin being southern slang for engine) made the task much simpler, and cotton production in the lower South exploded. Cotton planters and their slaves moved to Georgia, Mississippi, and Alabama to start new cotton plantations. Many planters in the Chesapeake region sold their slaves to cotton planters in the lower South. This created a massive interstate slave trade that transferred enslaved persons through auctions and forced marches in chains and that also broke up many slave families.

In 1831, in Virginia, a large-scale slave rebellion led by Nat Turner resulted in the deaths of approximately 60 whites and more than 100 blacks and generated alarm throughout the South. That same decade saw the emergence of a radicalized (and to a degree racially integrated) abolitionist movement, led by Massachusetts activist William Lloyd Garrison, and an equally radicalized pro slavery faction, led by U.S. Senator John C. Calhoun of South Carolina.

The polarization sharpened in subsequent decades. The Mexican-American War (1846–1848) brought large new western territories under U.S. control and renewed the contention in Congress over the status of slavery in federal territories. The complex 1850 Compromise, which included a new fugitive slave law heavily weighted in favor of slaveholders’ interests, did little to restore calm.

A few years later, Congress reopened the Kansas and Nebraska territories to slavery, thereby undoing the 1820 Missouri Compromise and rendering any further compromises unlikely. The U.S. Supreme Court tried vainly to settle the controversy by issuing, in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), the most pro-slavery ruling in its history. In 1858, Abraham Lincoln, a rising figure in the newly born Republican Party, declared the United States a “house divided” between slavery and freedom. In late 1859, militant abolitionist John Brown alarmed the South when he attempted to liberate slaves by taking over a federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. He was promptly captured, tried, and executed and thereupon became a martyr for many northern abolitionists.

Watch this BRI Homework Help video: Dred Scott v. Sandford for more information on the pivotal Dred Scott decision.

Leaders such as Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, Harriet Tubman, and James Forten all worked for the cause of abolition and equality.

As the debate over slavery continued on the national stage, formerly enslaved and free black men and women spoke out against the evils of slavery. Slave narratives such as those by Frederick Douglass, Solomon Northrup, and Harriet Jacobs humanized the experience of slavery. Their vivid, heartbreaking accounts of their own enslavement strengthened the moral cause of abolition. At the same time, enslaved men and women made the brave and dangerous decision to run away. Some ran on their own, and others used the Underground Railroad, a network of secret “conductors” and “stations” that helped enslaved people escape to the North and, after 1850, to Canada. The most famous of these conductors was Harriet Tubman, who traveled to the South about 12 times to lead approximately 70 men and women to freedom. Free blacks faced their own challenges. Leaders such as Benjamin Banneker, James Forten, David Walker, and Maria Stewart spoke out against racist attitudes and laws that sought to limit their political and civil rights.

This map shows the concentration of slaves in the southern United States as derived from the 1860 U.S. Census. The so-called “Border states”—Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, and after 1863, West Virginia—allowed slavery but remained loyal to the Union. Credit: Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division.

By 1860, the atmosphere in the United States was combustible. With the election of Abraham Lincoln to the presidency in November of that year, the conflict over slavery came to a head. Since Lincoln and Republicans opposed the expansion of slavery and called it a moral evil, seven slaveholding states declared their secession from the United States. And in April 1861, the war came. The next five years of conflict and bloodshed determined the fate of enslaved men, women, and children, and of the Union itself.

Reading Comprehension Questions

• What actions were taken to oppose slavery in the colonial period and Founding era?
• Why did the Constitution not use the words “slave” or “slavery”?
• The invention of the cotton gin
• The Mexican-American War
• Dred Scott v. Sandford
• The election of Abraham Lincoln as president
• How did formerly enslaved and free black men and women fight to end slavery?

Home — Essay Samples — Law, Crime & Punishment — Civil Liberties — Why Is Japanese Internment Justified

Why is Japanese Internment Justified

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Published: Mar 25, 2024

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