Though on the surface the Civil War may have seemed a lopsided conflict, with the 23 states of the Union enjoying an enormous advantage in population, manufacturing (including arms production) and railroad construction, the Confederates had a strong military tradition, along with some of the best soldiers and commanders in the nation. Border slave states like Missouri, Kentucky and Maryland did not secede, but there was much Confederate sympathy among their citizens. Four more southern states-Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina and Tennessee-joined the Confederacy after Fort Sumter. Sumter’s commander, Major Robert Anderson, surrendered after less than two days of bombardment, leaving the fort in the hands of Confederate forces under Pierre G.T. On April 12, after Lincoln ordered a fleet to resupply Sumter, Confederate artillery fired the first shots of the Civil War. Outbreak of the Civil War (1861)Įven as Lincoln took office in March 1861, Confederate forces threatened the federal-held Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina. Abraham Lincoln’s election in November 1860 was the final straw, and within three months seven southern states-South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas-had seceded from the United States. After the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Dred Scott case (1857) confirmed the legality of slavery in the territories, the abolitionist John Brown’s raid at Harper’s Ferry in 1859 convinced more and more southerners that their northern neighbors were bent on the destruction of the “peculiar institution” that sustained them.
Pro- and anti-slavery forces struggled violently in “ Bleeding Kansas,” while opposition to the act in the North led to the formation of the Republican Party, a new political entity based on the principle of opposing slavery’s extension into the western territories. Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which essentially opened all new territories to slavery by asserting the rule of popular sovereignty over congressional edict. His arm was amputated, and he died from pneumonia eight days later. At Chancellorsville, Jackson was shot by one of his own men, who mistook him for Union cavalry. Growing abolitionist sentiment in the North after the 1830s and northern opposition to slavery’s extension into the new western territories led many southerners to fear that the existence of slavery in America-and thus the backbone of their economy-was in danger.ĭid you know? Confederate General Thomas Jonathan Jackson earned his famous nickname, "Stonewall," from his steadfast defensive efforts in the First Battle of Bull Run (First Manassas).
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