Civil War

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Civil War

Civil war was the greatest war in American history. It was waged in 10,000

places-from Valverde, New Mexico, and Fernandina on the Florida coast. More

than three million Americans fought in it and more than 600,00 men died in it.

It was not only the immensity of the fight but the new weapons, the new

standards of generalship, and the strategies of destruction which made the Civil

War an event present ever since in the American consciousness.

Here are some of the crucial events of the war: the firing of the first shots at

Fort Sumter; the battles of Shiloh, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg; Sherman's

dramatic march to the sea; the surrender at Appomattox. In fact, Civil War

wasn't simply the story of great battles and great generals, it was also an

elaborate portrait of ourselves, American people- individuals and families,

northerners and southerners, soldiers and civilians, slaves and slaveowners,

rich and poor, urban and rural.

Twenty years before Civil War started, South and North didn't have a good

relationship already and there were many issues that they didn't agree on each

other such as Clay's compromise, Fugitive slave act, Pottawatomie massacre, etc.

The Southern states supported slavery because the slave population held more

than 40 percent of the entire population and also they needed slavery for their

industrialization. Therefore, if they freed all the slaves, someone would

predict, many whites would have no jobs and many things would be up-side-down.

As the result, controlling over slaves was very important for the Southern. But

the Northern were opponent of slavery since the slavery population took less

than 10 percent of the entire population and Southern states were already free.

Then something really happened when Abraham Lincoln, a known opponent of slavery,

was elected president. The Southern states then decided to secede, which meant

that they were leaving the nation because they thought how could Lincoln be the

president of the United States if most of the Southern didn't vote for him.

Now, as we could see, our nation started to divide into two, the south and the

north.

During the year of 1861 to 1865, there were thousands of war between south and

north and there were countless people died in it. The war immediately began

when south and north fought for Fort Sumter. At Lincoln's inaug...

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Reconstruction and of defining African Americans' rights. Therefore, many

Moderate Republican, who made up the majority of the Republican party, angry

because his failure to protect African American's rights. After congress took

over the reconstruction from Johnson, they quickly passed the Civil Rights Act

of 1866, which declared that everyone who was born in the land of United States

was a citizen with full civil right, (not guarantee for voting rights). Then

Fourteenth Amendment was also passed in June 1866. It required states to extend

equal citizenship to African Americans and all people were born naturalized in

the United States.) Then Fifteenth Amendment was passed at the following year,

it pointed out that everyone should have rights of vote no matter what color the

people were.

Many African American children started to go to school and being educated just

like everyone else. Many African Americans involves politics and protect their

own rights. As we knew, countless people didn't have jobs and started die from

hunger, therefore, Industrialization was needed so that those people could have

jobs. Many Southern landowners turned into factory owners.

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