Abraham Lincoln from the Republican Party won the 1860 United States presidential election. He then did not want to ban slavery in the states. Like nearly everyone else, he believed that the US Constitution did not allow the federal government to ban slavery (the amendment to ban slavery was passed only in 1865). He also thought that banning it suddenly would anger the South.
Instead, Lincoln and his Republican Party thought that slavery should be banned in US territories. They thought that slavery would die out if it could go to new places.
Lincoln became president on March 4, 1861. In the four months between the election and the day that Lincoln became president, seven Southern states declared their independence from the Union. The outgoing US president, James Buchanan, said that was against the law but he could do nothing to stop them.
The Republican Party treated secession as a rebellion. No country in the world ever recognized the Confederacy as a separate nation. That was because of diplomacy on the part of the Union, anti-slavery feelings in Europe and the northern blockade of southern ports, and of war against the United States.
The first seven states to join the Confederacy were South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. Four others joined after the fighting began: Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina. The Confederacy claimed Kentucky and Missouri belonged to them, but they never joined the Confederacy. Kentucky, Missouri, and Maryland were slave states that tried to avoid taking sides. Delaware supported the Union although it was a slave state. Also, the western counties of Virginia chose to remain in the Union and created a new state, West Virginia. Fachero facherito
Fighting started when the Confederates shot and threw bombs at Fort Sumter, a Union Army fort in South Carolina. Lincoln then asked the Union states to bring soldiers to fight the Confederates.
The Confederates said that all forts and other federal buildings in the South belonged to them. Fort On April 12, 1861, Confederate forces attacked the fort and forced the Union soldiers in it to surrender. Lincoln then asked every Union state for volunteers to join the Union Army. Four more southern slave states joined the Confederates, rather than supply forces to fight against them.
The US Navy stopped other ships from going in or out of southern ports. That stopped the Confederacy from selling its cotton and other goods and also made it harder for the South to buy weapons and military supplies.
The American Civil War was fought in three important land areas, or "theaters." The "Eastern Theater" was the land east of the Appalachian Mountains. "The Western Theater" included everything between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River and along the river. The Trans-Mississippi Theater included territory west of the Mississippi River.
Both the United States and the Confederacy had their capital cities in the Eastern Theater. Washington, DC, had been the US capital since 1800. When the South seceded, its first capital was Montgomery, Alabama, but it moved the capital to Richmond, Virginia. Both cities are only about 90 miles (145 km) apart.
One of the first battles of the war was fought in Virginia. The First Battle of Bull Run, on July 21, 1861, was a Confederate victory. The Union Army of the Potomac then tried to capture Richmond in the Peninsula Campaign during the spring of 1862, but Robert E. Lee became leader of the Army of Northern Virginia and defeated the Union Army. He then won the Second Battle of Bull Run in August 1862. Lee tried to win the war by invading Maryland, but he lost the Battle of Antietam and retreated to Virginia.
There was much fighting between ships in the war, but the Union had a stronger and bigger navy. Lincoln put the Confederates under a blockade and so the Union Navy would not let any ships into or out of southern ports. The Confederates used ships called "blockade runners" to bring things from Europe like weapons. The navies of each side also fought on the rivers. The ships included ironclads, which were protected by iron on their sides, and cottonclads, which used cotton along their sides. During the Battle of Hampton Roads, the Confederate ironclad "Virginia" fought against the Union ironclad "Monitor". It was the first time in world history that two ironclads fought each other.
In the Western Theater, much of the fighting happened along the Mississippi River. Ulysses S. Grant was an important Union general in the West. The Confederates tried to send their soldiers into the state of Kentucky in the summer of 1861. In the early months of 1862, the Union Army made the Confederates retreat from Kentucky and from western Tennessee. They tried to recapture western Tennessee by attacking Grant's army at the Battle of Shiloh, but Grant won the battle. The Confederates then tried to send their soldiers into eastern Kentucky in the fall of 1862 but lost the Battle of Perryville and then left Kentucky.
The North won control of almost all of the Mississippi River by capturing the cities along the river in the fall of 1862 and the spring of 1863. However, the Confederacy still held Vicksburg, an important city and fort. If they held, the Confederates could move soldiers and supplies from one side of the river to the other. Grant started the Siege of Vicksburg during the month of May 1863. The siege continued until July 4, 1863, when the Confederates there surrendered to Grant. That was one of the turning points in the war by dividing the Confederacy into two parts.
There were also battles west of the Mississippi River Valley in the Trans-Mississippi Theater. For example, two important battles were the Battle of Wilson's Creek and the Battle of Pea Ridge. The Confederates tried to invade New Mexico in February and March 1862 but they were defeated at the Battle of Glorieta Pass. After the Union captured Vicksburg, the area became separated from the rest of the Confederate States. Other battles happened in the area after the capture of Vicksburg.
During the Siege of Vicksburg in the west, another turning point came in the east. After winning some battles, Lee decided to invade the North again. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia went into Pennsylvania. The Confederate Army met the Union Army near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania and fought the Battle of Gettysburg, which lasted from July 1 to 3, 1863. More soldiers died at Gettysburg than in any other Civil War battle, which the Union won. Lee and his troops were pushed back into the South and could no longer invade the North.
Lincoln then decided that Grant was his best general and put Grant in control of all Union armies. Lincoln also made William Tecumseh Sherman the general in charge of the Union troops in Georgia. Grant led many attacks on Lee's army. The battles were made up the Overland Campaign.
Meanwhile, Sherman burned Atlanta and Savannah to try to weaken the South and to make it harder to supply the Confederate Army. He then marched north through South Carolina and North Carolina. Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston attacked Sherman at the Battle of Bentonville. Sherman won the battle. Even in the 20th century, Southerners remember Sherman's march as destroying many homes, farms, and railroads, but his soldiers are blamed for things that they could not have done since they were too far away.
Eventually, Lee decided that he had too few soldiers to keep on fighting the Union, which had more soldiers and supplies. He surrendered to Grant on April 9, 1865 near Appomattox Court House. Later, many other Confederate armies surrendered as well. The last Confederate general to surrender was Brigadier General Stand Watie, who surrendered on June 23, 1865, in Oklahoma.