Who was the US President During the American Civil War Open Mic Who was the US President During the American Civil War Abraham Lincoln was the US president during the American Civil War which is also known as the "War Between the States". "A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently, half slave, half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved. I do not expect the house to fall - but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other." - Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln was the US president during the American Civil War. Abraham Lincoln was the sixteenth US president who was elected to power in the year 1860. He represented the Republican Party. He was the first Republican to receive 180 of 303 electoral votes and forty percent of the popular vote. On March 4,1861 Lincoln took office as the president of the United States of America. At that time, eleven Southern States declared their secession from the Union. Both, the Republican and the Democratic Party, rejected the secession. The government of the US regarded it as a rebellion.

Jefferson Davis who had formed the Confederate States of America led the civil war against the government. On April 12, 1861 Confederate forces under the leadership of Jefferson Davis attacked the US military base at Fort Sumter in South Carolina. This led to the second war of American independence also known as American Civil War. The army under the guidance of Abraham Lincoln crushed the secession movement. The outcome of the American Civil War was the ending of slavery. On September 1862, Abraham Lincoln issued the "Emancipation Proclamation" freeing the slaves once and for all. He is, therefore, known as the Father of Emancipation. Around 620,000 soldiers died in the American Civil War and it is considered as one of the deadliest wars in the history of America. By Maya Pillai Jefferson Davis Elected President of the Confederate States of America Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America Jefferson Davis Elected President of the Confederate States of America November 6, 1861 Who was president during the Civil War? If you were from a Northern state, you answered Abraham Lincoln. If you were from a Southern state, you may have answered Jefferson Davis.

On November 6, 1861, Jefferson Davis was elected president, not of the United States of America but of the Confederate States of America. He ran unopposed and was elected to serve for a six-year term. Davis had already been serving as the temporary president for almost a year. How do you think President Lincoln, who had earlier been elected president of the United States, reacted to the Southern election? page 1 of 2 Confederate States of America - American Civil War - HISTORY.com Confederate States of America A+E Networks Introduction During the American Civil War, the Confederate States of America consisted of the governments of 11 Southern states that seceded from the Union in 1860-61, carrying on all the affairs of a separate government and conducting a major war until defeated in the spring of 1865. Convinced that their way of life, based on slavery, was irretrievably threatened by the election of President Abraham Lincoln (November 1860), the seven states of the Deep South (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas) seceded from the Union during the following months.

When the war began with the firing on Fort Sumter (April 12, 1861), they were joined by four states of the upper South (Arkansas, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia). Google Formed in February 1861, the Confederate States of America was a republic composed of eleven Southern states that seceded from the Union in order to preserve slavery, states’ rights, and political liberty for whites. Its conservative government, with Mississippian Jefferson Davis as president, sought a peaceful separation, but the United States refused to acquiesce in the secession. The war that ensued started at Fort Sumter , South Carolina , on April 12, 1861, and lasted four years. It cost the South nearly 500,000 men killed or wounded out of a population of 9 million (including 3 million slaves) and $5 billion in treasure. Did You Know? On July 15, 1870, Georgia became the last former Confederate state to be restored to the Union, more than five years after the Civil War's end.

The Confederacy’s eastern military fortunes went well for the first two years, with major victories at First Manassas (Bull Run), ‘Stonewall’ Jackson’s Valley Campaign, and the Seven Days’ Battles, where Gen. Robert E. Lee took command of the main eastern army in June 1862 and cleared Virginia of federal troops by September. His invasion of Maryland was checked at Sharpsburg (Antietam) in mid-September, and he returned to Virginia, where he badly defeated federal forces at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville. The main western Confederate forces-commanded by Generals Albert Sidney Johnston , P. G. T. Beauregard, and Braxton Bragg-suffered defeats at Forts Henry and Donelson and Shiloh in Tennessee , and at Corinth, Mississippi , but they held that flank through 1862. Davis formed his government at the first Confederate capital in Montgomery, Alabama .

The Confederacy’s Permanent Constitution provided for presidential item veto, debating seats for cabinet members, and six-year terms for the president and vice president (the president was ineligible for successive terms); it prohibited the foreign slave trade and forbade Congress from levying a protective tariff, giving bounties, or making appropriations for internal improvements. After initial problems, Davis’s government grew stronger as he learned to use executive power to consolidate control of the armed forces and manpower distribution. But some Southern governors resisted Davis’s centralization and tried to keep their men and resources at home. Although Davis used authority effectively, the insistence on preserving states’ rights plagued him constantly. Vice President Alexander H. Stephens , an early dissident, for example, sulked in his native Georgia and finally urged its secession from the Confederacy. But nothing gave the government more trouble than its poverty. There was only $27 million worth of specie in the Confederacy, and money remained scarce. A federal blockade gradually shrank Southern foreign trade and drained financial reserves. Christopher G. Memminger, treasury secretary, followed conservative policies.

A campaign to raise funds through a domestic loan in February 1861 lagged; a $50 million loan drive launched in May did little better. Finally Congress resorted to a ‘produce loan,’ which allowed planters to pledge produce as security for bonds. Although initially popular, this expedient also failed. The next resort, paper money, stimulated inflation, and on April 24, 1863, Congress passed the toughest tax law ever seen in the South. Rates were increased, an income tax was authorized, and a profits tax was imposed on farm products; farmers and planters were subjected to a tax-in-kind, which required them to contribute one-tenth of their annual crop yield to the government. This unpopular law did not solve the financial problems, however. In mid-1863, Memminger proposed taking one-third of the currency out of circulation. Congress resisted, but finally, in February 1864, it passed a funding act that created a brief drop in inflation, which soon yielded to a price-and-money spiral that presaged bankruptcy. An 1863 foreign loan for $15 million through the Erlanger Bank in France realized only about $9 million in purchasing power.

Then the government resorted to such desperate measures as impressment of private produce, livestock, machinery, and transportation equipment, which brought limited relief to the armies but endless enmity for what was seen as a ‘despotic’ government. The failure to tax land, cotton, and slaves earned cries of ‘a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight’ and sapped morale behind the lines. The Confederacy never won the loyalty of the black population. Some free blacks volunteered for Southern ranks but were rejected. Federal invaders liberated slaves, and fear of insurrections sapped Southern strength in the last two war years. Keeping the ranks of the armies filled became difficult as casualties mounted and enthusiasm faded. In April 1862, Congress, on the advice of Davis, passed the first draft law in American history, which took into Confederate service all white men between eighteen and thirty-five. Liberal exemptions (including one white exemption for every twenty slaves owned) weakened the law. But the courts upheld it and most people accepted it as necessary, an attitude that persisted even after February 1864, when the age limits were extended to seventeen and fifty and substitutes were prohibited.

In March 1865 blacks finally were enrolled in Confederate ranks, but very few served. Taxation, impressment, and conscription-these were the hallmarks of a tough administration. President Davis pursued centralization much as Abraham Lincoln did-laissez-faire policies could not win a modern war. The lessons learned in management, sacrifice, fortitude, and logistics would change the South permanently. Supplying and moving the armed forces became the main work of many in the South, and new methods of procurement, storage, and distribution were developed. Railroads were essential to the mass movement of men and matériel, of ordnance and medicine, and of civilian refugees from occupied areas. Congress passed laws nationalizing rail lines, sequestering space on blockade runners, and controlling commerce. Industrial development had lagged in the antebellum South, and now Congress encouraged industrialization by siphoning manpower and money to companies producing war goods. A minor industrial miracle occurred in the Confederacy: a nation with minuscule manufacturing capacity acquired foundries, powder works, rolling mills, arsenals enough to sustain nearly a million troops and ships enough to scare American merchantmen. The chief of ordnance, Gen.

Josiah Gorgas, a Pennsylvanian and genius of logistics, supplied Rebel munitions to the end. Gorgas, an advocate of blockade running, oversaw the building of small, fast ships capable of eluding federal coastal patrols. Blockade running was a very successful venture: at least 600,000 rifles were imported, plus large quantities of cannon, saltpeter, lead, clothing, coffee, and medicines. Highly profitable, blockade running produced heroes, villains, and million- aires-and sustained the Rebels. Davis’s foreign policy centered on gaining recognition by Great Britain and France. Napoleon III wanted a Confederate victory but hesitated to act without the British. Many Britons sympathized with the Confederates, but the working class supported Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation . Judah P. Benjamin, Confederate secretary of state, hoped that an embargo on ‘King Cotton’ would force help from textile- producing countries. But each time recognition was almost at hand, military reverses chilled prospects. The issue remained with the Rebel soldiers: when they won, independence came close; when they lost, nothing else mattered. And they lost almost steadily after the first terrible week of July 1863.

Defeats at Gettysburg and Vicksburg cost fifty thousand men and seventy thousand arms. After that week, long retreats began in the East through the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, Petersburg; in the West from Chickamauga, Lookout Mountain/Missionary Ridge, Atlanta, to Franklin and Nashville, Tennessee, which led to Lee’s surrender at Appomattox and Joseph E. Johnston’s at Durham Station, North Carolina . Sustained for a while by Davis’s offensive-defensive strategy, Confederate armies were finally defeated by attrition, the country behind them exhausted and drained. The surprise is not that they lost but that they persisted for four arduous years. The Reader’s Companion to American History. Eric Foner and John A. Garraty, Editors. Copyright © 1991 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved. Tags Presidents Following the Civil War • Abraham Lincoln, 1861-1865 Abraham Lincoln was the most important president of the 19th century, if not in all of American history. He led the nation through the Civil War, and was notable for his great speeches.

Lincoln's rise in politics was one of the greatest American stories. His debates with Stephen Douglas became legendary, and led to his 1860 campaign and his victory in the election of 1860 . More » continue reading below our video 10 Facts About the Titanic That You Don't Know President Andrew Johnson. Library of Congress • Andrew Johnson, 1865-1869 Tennessee's Andrew Johnson took office after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, and was beset by problems. The Civil War was ending and the nation was still in a state of crisis. Johnson was mistrusted by members of his own party, and eventually faced an impeachment trial. Johnson's controversial time in office was dominated by Reconstruction , the rebuilding of the South after the Civil War. More » President Ulysses S. Grant. Library of Congress • Ulysses S. Grant, 1869-1877 Civil War hero General Ulysses S. Grant seemed to be an obvious choice to run for president, though he had not been a very political person throughout most of his life. He was elected in 1868, and gave a promising inaugural address.

Grant's administration became known for corruption, though Grant himself was generally untouched by scandal. He was reelected to a second term in 1872, and served as president during the great celebrations for the nation's centennial in 1876. More » Rutherford B. Hayes. Library of Congress • Rutherford B. Hayes, 1877-1881 Rutherford B. Hayes was declared the winner of the disputed election of 1876 , which became known as "The Great Stolen Election." It's likely the election was actually won by Rutherford's opponent, Samuel J. Tilden. Rutherford took office under an agreement to end Reconstruction in the South, and he only served one term. He began the process of instituting civil service reform, a reaction to the spoils system which had flourished for decades, since the administration of Andrew Jackson . More » President James Garfield. Library of Congress • James Garfield, 1881 James Garfield, a distinguished Civil War veteran, may have been one of the most promising presidents following the war.

But his time in the White House was cut short when he was wounded by an assassin four months after taking office on July 2, 1881. Doctors tried to treat Garfield, but he never recovered, and died on September 19, 1881. More » President Chester Alan Arthur. Library of Congress • Chester A. Arthur, 1881-1885 Elected vice president on the 1880 Republican ticket with Garfield, Chester Alan Arthur ascended to the presidency upon Garfield's death. Though he never expected to be president, Arthur proved to be a capable chief executive. He became an advocate of civil service reform, and signed the Pendleton Act into law. Arthur wasn't motivated to run for a second term, and was not renominated by the Republican Party. More » President Grover Cleveland. Library of Congress • Grover Cleveland, 1885-1889, 1893-1897 Grover Cleveland is best remembered as the only president to serve two non-consecutive terms. He had been perceived as a reform governor of New York, yet came to the White House amid controversy in the election of 1884 .

He was the first Democrat elected president following the Civil War. After being defeated by Benjamin Harrison in the election of 1888, Cleveland ran against Harrison again in 1892 and won. More » President Benjamin Harrison. Library of Congress • Benjamin Harrison, 1889-1893 Benjamin Harrison was a senator from Indiana and the grandson of a president, William Henry Harrison. He was nominated by the Republican Party to present a reliable alternative to Grover Cleveland in the election of 1888. Harrison won and while his term in office was not remarkable, he generally carried on Republican policies such as civil service reform. Following his loss to Cleveland in the 1892 election, he wrote a popular textbook on American government. More » President William McKinley. Getty Images A Brief Overview of the American Civil War A Brief Overview of the American Civil War A Defining Time in Our Nation's History By Dr. James McPherson Abraham Lincoln (National Archives) 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.

Videos Battles of the Civil War 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. Bodies in front of the Dunker Church - Antietam Battlefield (Library of Congress) 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. American Civil War History - American Civil War - HISTORY.com American Civil War History A+E Networks Introduction In the spring of 1861, decades of simmering tensions between the northern and southern United States over issues including states’ rights versus federal authority, westward expansion and slavery exploded into the American Civil War (1861-65).

The election of the anti-slavery Republican Abraham Lincoln as president in 1860 caused seven southern states to secede from the Union to form the Confederate States of America; four more joined them after the first shots of the Civil War were fired. Four years of brutal conflict were marked by historic battles at Bull Run (Manassas), Antietam, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg and Vicksburg, among others. The War Between the States, as the Civil War was also known, pitted neighbor against neighbor and in some cases, brother against brother. By the time it ended in Confederate surrender in 1865, the Civil War proved to be the costliest war ever fought on American soil, with some 620,000 of 2.4 million soldiers killed, millions more injured and the population and territory of the South devastated. Google Civil War Background In the mid-19th century, while the United States was experiencing an era of tremendous growth, a fundamental economic difference existed between the country’s northern and southern regions.

While in the North, manufacturing and industry was well established, and agriculture was mostly limited to small-scale farms, the South’s economy was based on a system of large-scale farming that depended on the labor of black slaves to grow certain crops, especially cotton and tobacco. 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. Did 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). At Chancellorsville, Jackson was shot by one of his own men, who mistook him for Union cavalry. His arm was amputated, and he died from pneumonia eight days later. In 1854, the U.S. Congress passed the Kansas- Nebraska Act, which essentially opened all new territories to slavery by asserting the rule of popular sovereignty over congressional edict.

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. 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. 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. Outbreak of the Civil War (1861) Even as Lincoln took office in March 1861, Confederate forces threatened the federal-held Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina. On April 12, after Lincoln ordered a fleet to resupply Sumter, Confederate artillery fired the first shots of the Civil War.

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. Beauregard. Four more southern states– Virginia , Arkansas , North Carolina and Tennessee–joined the Confederacy after Fort Sumter. Border slave states like Missouri , Kentucky and Maryland did not secede, but there was much Confederate sympathy among their citizens. 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. They also had a cause they believed in: preserving their long-held traditions and institutions, chief among these being slavery.

In the First Battle of Bull Run (known in the South as First Manassas) on July 21, 1861, 35,000 Confederate soldiers under the command of Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson forced a greater number of Union forces (or Federals) to retreat towards Washington , D.C., dashing any hopes of a quick Union victory and leading Lincoln to call for 500,000 more recruits. In fact, both sides’ initial call for troops had to be widened after it became clear that the war would not be a limited or short conflict. The Civil War in Virginia (1862) George B. McClellan–who replaced the aging General Winfield Scott as supreme commander of the Union Army after the first months of the war–was beloved by his troops, but his reluctance to advance frustrated Lincoln. In the spring of 1862, McClellan finally led his Army of the Potomac up the peninsula between the York and James Rivers, capturing Yorktown on May 4. The combined forces of Robert E.

Lee and Jackson successfully drove back McClellan’s army in the Seven Days’ Battles (June 25-July 1), and a cautious McClellan called for yet more reinforcements in order to move against Richmond. Lincoln refused, and instead withdrew the Army of the Potomac to Washington. By mid-1862, McClellan had been replaced as Union general-in-chief by Henry W. Halleck, though he remained in command of the Army of the Potomac. Lee then moved his troops northwards and split his men, sending Jackson to meet Pope’s forces near Manassas, while Lee himself moved separately with the second half of the army. On August 29, Union troops led by John Pope struck Jackson’s forces in the Second Battle of Bull Run (Second Manassas). The next day, Lee hit the Federal left flank with a massive assault, driving Pope’s men back towards Washington. On the heels of his victory at Manassas, Lee began the first Confederate invasion of the North.

Despite contradictory orders from Lincoln and Halleck, McClellan was able to reorganize his army and strike at Lee on September 14 in Maryland, driving the Confederates back to a defensive position along Antietam Creek, near Sharpsburg. On September 17, the Army of the Potomac hit Lee’s forces (reinforced by Jackson’s) in what became the war’s bloodiest single day of fighting. Total casualties at Antietam numbered 12,410 of some 69,000 troops on the Union side, and 13,724 of around 52,000 for the Confederates. The Union victory at Antietam would prove decisive, as it halted the Confederate advance in Maryland and forced Lee to retreat into Virginia. Still, McClellan’s failure to pursue his advantage earned him the scorn of Lincoln and Halleck, who removed him from command in favor of Ambrose E. Burnside.

Burnside’s assault on Lee’s troops near Fredericksburg on December 13 ended in heavy Union casualties and a Confederate victory; he was promptly replaced by Joseph “Fighting Joe” Hooker, and both armies settled into winter quarters across the Rappahannock River from each other. After the Emancipation Proclamation (1863-4) Lincoln had used the occasion of the Union victory at Antietam to issue a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation , which freed all slaves in the rebellious states after January 1, 1863. He justified his decision as a wartime measure, and did not go so far as to free the slaves in the border states loyal to the Union. Still, the Emancipation Proclamation deprived the Confederacy of the bulk of its labor forces and put international public opinion strongly on the Union side. Some 186,000 black soldiers would join the Union Army by the time the war ended in 1865, and 38,000 lost their lives.

In the spring of 1863, Hooker’s plans for a Union offensive were thwarted by a surprise attack by the bulk of Lee’s forces on May 1, whereupon Hooker pulled his men back to Chancellorsville. The Confederates gained a costly victory in the battle that followed, suffering 13,000 casualties (around 22 percent of their troops); the Union lost 17,000 men (15 percent). Lee launched another invasion of the North in early June, attacking Union forces commanded by General George Meade on July 1 near Gettysburg, in southern Pennsylvania . Over three days of fierce fighting, the Confederates were unable to push through the Union center, and suffered casualties of close to 60 percent. Meade failed to counterattack, however, and Lee’s remaining forces were able to escape into Virginia, ending the last Confederate invasion of the North. Also in July 1863, Union forces under Ulysses S. Grant took Vicksburg (Mississippi), a victory that would prove to be the turning point of the war in the western theater.

After a Confederate victory at Chickamauga Creek, Georgia, just south of Chattanooga, Tennessee , in September, Lincoln expanded Grant’s command, and he led a reinforced Federal army (including two corps from the Army of the Potomac) to victory in Chattanooga in late November. Toward a Union Victory (1864-65) In March 1864, Lincoln put Grant in supreme command of the Union armies, replacing Halleck. Leaving William T. Sherman in control in the West, Grant headed to Washington, where he led the Army of the Potomac towards Lee’s troops in northern Virginia. Despite heavy Union casualties in the Battle of the Wilderness and at Spotsylvania (both May 1864), at Cold Harbor (early June) and the key rail center of Petersburg (June), Grant pursued a strategy of attrition, putting Petersburg under siege for the next nine months. Sherman outmaneuvered Confederate forces to take Atlanta by September, after which he and some 60,000 Union troops began the famous “March to the Sea,” devastating Georgia on the way to capturing Savannah on December 21.

Columbia and Charleston, South Carolina, fell to Sherman’s men by mid-February, and Jefferson Davis belatedly handed over the supreme command to Lee, with the Confederate war effort on its last legs. Sherman pressed on through North Carolina, capturing Fayetteville, Bentonville, Goldsboro and Raleigh by mid-April. Meanwhile, exhausted by the Union siege of Petersburg and Richmond, Lee’s forces made a last attempt at resistance, attacking and captured the Federal-controlled Fort Stedman on March 25. An immediate counterattack reversed the victory, however, and on the night of April 2-3 Lee’s forces evacuated Richmond. For most of the next week, Grant and Meade pursued the Confederates along the Appomattox River, finally exhausting their possibilities for escape. Grant accepted Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Court House on April 9. On the eve of victory, the Union lost its great leader: The actor and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre in Washington on April 14. Sherman received Johnston’s surrender at Durham Station, North Carolina on April 26, effectively ending the Civil War. Tags Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln Tweet Abraham Lincoln in 1865.

(National Archives) Abraham Lincoln, sixteenth President of the United States, was born near Hodgenville, Kentucky on February 12, 1809. His family moved to Indiana when he was seven and he grew up on the edge of the frontier. He had very little formal education, but read voraciously when not working on his father’s farm. A childhood friend later recalled Lincoln's "manic" intellect, and the sight of him red-eyed and tousle-haired as he pored over books late into the night. In 1828, at the age of nineteen, he accompanied a produce-laden flatboat down the Mississippi River to New Orleans, Louisiana—his first visit to a large city--and then walked back home. Two years later, trying to avoid health and finance troubles, Lincoln's father moved the family moved to Illinois. Want More Lincoln? & John J. Richter After moving away from home, Lincoln co-owned a general store for several years before selling his stake and enlisting as a militia captain defending Illinois in the Black Hawk War of 1832.

Black Hawk, a Sauk chief, believed he had been swindled by a recent land deal and sought to resettle his old holdings. Lincoln did not see direct combat during the short conflict, but the sight of corpse-strewn battlefields at Stillman's Run and Kellogg's Grove deeply affected him. As a captain, he developed a reputation for pragmatism and integrity. Once, faced with a rail fence during practice maneuvers and forgetting the parade-ground instructions to direct his men over it, he simply ordered them to fall out and reassemble on the other side a minute later. Another time, he stopped his men before they executed a wandering Native American as a spy. Stepping in front of their raised muskets, Lincoln is said to have challenged his men to combat for the terrified native's life. His men stood down. After the war, he studied law and campaigned for a seat on the Illinois State Legislature. Although not elected in his first attempt, Lincoln persevered and won the position in 1834, serving as a Whig. Abraham Lincoln met Mary Todd in Springfield, Illinois where he was practicing as a lawyer. They were married in 1842 over her family’s objections and had four sons.

Only one lived to adulthood. The deep melancholy that pervaded the Lincoln family, with occasional detours into outright madness, is in some ways sourced in their close relationship with death. Lincoln, a self-described "prairie lawyer," focused on his all-embracing law practice in the early 1850s after one term in Congress from 1847 to 1849. He joined the new Republican party—and the ongoing argument over sectionalism—in 1856. A series of heated debates in 1858 with Stephen A. Douglas, the sponsor of the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act , over slavery and its place in the United States forged Lincoln into a prominent figure in national politics. Lincoln’s anti-slavery platform made him extremely unpopular with Southerners and his nomination for President in 1860 enraged them. On November 6, 1860, Lincoln won the presidential election without the support of a single Southern state. Talk of secession, bandied about since the 1830s, took on a serious new tone.

The Civil War was not entirely caused by Lincoln’s election, but the election was one of the primary reasons the war broke out the following year. Lincoln’s decision to fight rather than to let the Southern states secede was not based on his feelings towards slavery. Rather, he felt it was his sacred duty as President of the United States to preserve the Union at all costs. His first inaugural address was an appeal to the rebellious states, seven of which had already seceded, to rejoin the nation. His first draft of the speech ended with an ominous message: "Shall it be peace, or the sword?" The Civil War with the opening bombardment of Fort Sumter , South Carolina, on April 12, 1861. Lincoln forced the Confederate hand with his decision to resupply the fort, which had suddenly become an outpost in a hostile nation. The Southern navy turned away the supply convoy and then fired the first shot of the war at Fort Sumter, forcing the Federal defenders to surrender after a 34-hour battle. Throughout the war Lincoln struggled to find capable generals for his armies.

As commander-in-chief, he legally held the highest rank in the United States armed forces, and he diligently exercised his authority through strategic planning, weapons testing, and the promotion and demotion of officers. McDowell , Fremont , McClellan , Pope , McClellan again, Buell , Burnside , Rosecrans --all of these men and more withered under Lincoln's watchful eye as they failed to bring him success on the battlefield. He did not issue his famous Emancipation Proclamation until January 1, 1863 after the Union victory at the Battle of Antietam . The Emancipation Proclamation, which was legally based on the President’s right to seize the property of those in rebellion against the State, only freed slaves in Southern states where Lincoln’s forces had no control. Nevertheless, it changed the tenor of the war, making it, from the Northern point of view, a fight both to preserve the Union and to end slavery. "I can't spare this man. He fights."--Abraham Lincoln on U.S. Grant In 1864, Lincoln ran again for President. After years of war, he feared he would not win.

Only in the final months of the campaign did the exertions of Ulysses S. Grant , the quiet general now in command of all of the Union armies, begin to bear fruit. A string of heartening victories buoyed Lincoln's ticket and contributed significantly to his re-election. In his second inauguration speech , March 4, 1865, he set the tone he intended to take when the war finally ended. His one goal, he said, was “lasting peace among ourselves.” He called for “malice towards none” and “charity for all.” The war ended only a month later. The Lincoln administration did more than just manage the Civil War, although its reverberations could still be felt in a number of policies. The Revenue Act of 1862 established the United States' first income tax, largely to pay the costs of total war. The Morrill Act of 1862 established the basis of the state university system in this country, while the Homestead Act , also passed in 1862, encouraged settlement of the West by offering 160 acres of free land to settlers. Lincoln also created the Department of Agriculture and formally instituted the Thanksgiving holiday.

Internationally, he navigated the " Trent Affair ," a diplomatic crisis regarding the seizure of a British ship carrying Confederate envoys, in such a way as to quell the saber-rattling overtures coming from Britain as well as the United States. In another spill-over from the war, Lincoln restricted the civil liberties of due process and freedom of the press. On April 14, 1865, while attending a play at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., Abraham Lincoln was shot by Confederate sympathizer, John Wilkes Booth. The assassination was part of a larger plot to eliminate the Northern government that also left Secretary of State William Seward grievously injured. Lincoln died the following day, and with him the hope of reconstructing the nation without bitterness. Want the Latest? Follow us on Twitter and Facebook: Wartime Presidents POTUS Portraits Wartime Presidents American Presidents and their wars. The wars they served in, the wars they presided over as Commander-in-Chief and the Presidents Military facts of service. There are only Thirteen American Presidents in History who have never served in the Military. Presidential Military Facts George Washington was the first President to become a prisoner of war.

Washington was captured during the French and Indian War at Fort Necessity in 1754. Andrew Jackson was also a prisoner of war at the very young age of 13. The British captured him during the American Revolution, along with his brother. John F. Kennedy is the only President in history to have earned a Purple Heart. He received the medal for being wounded in battle while commanding a Patrol Torpedo boat after the attack of Pearl Harbor. George H. W. Bush was shot down during World War II by a Japanese anti-aircraft. Rescued by a submarine, George Bush was honored by the U.S. Military with the "Distinguished Flying Cross" for bravery in action. President George W. Bush is the longest Wartime Commander-in-Chief to preside over a declaration of war. The war on terror is ongoing today in the current administration of Barack Obama. If President Barack Obama finishes out his second term he will likely be the new record holder. Theodore Roosevelt is the only President in American History to receive a Congressional Medal of Honor.

The long thought over due recognition, was given on January 16, 2001 by President Bill Clinton and Proudly accepted by Tweed Roosevelt on his great grand father's behalf. The Military award is the only award presented to the recipient by the United States President. Theodore Roosevelt was the first President in history to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in 1906 for drafting to treaty to end the Russo-Japanese War. Three other American Presidents also received the Nobel Peace Prize: Woodrow Wilson in 1919 for establishing the League of Nations; Jimmy Carter in 2002 for his post Presidency work on promoting democracy, human rights, economic and social development; Barack Obama in 2009 for strengthening international diplomacy. Theodore Roosevelt's son, Theodore Roosevelt Jr. was one of two President's sons to receive the medal of honor. Roosevelt Jr.

for his service in World War II and Webb Cook Hayes for his action in the Philippines American Presidents and The Wars They Served In Continental Army - Highest rank Commander-in-Chief French and Indian War Virginia Militia, mostly administrative, no combat - Highest rank Colonel American Revolution Virginia Militia - Highest rank Colonel American Revolution Continental Army - Highest rank of Major Served in the American Revolution Served in the U.S. Army - Highest rank General American Revolution U.S. Army - Highest rank Major General Indian wars U.S. Army - Highest rank Captain War of 1812 U.S. Army - Highest rank Major General War of 1812 U.S. Army - Highest rank Brigadier General Mexican-American War Pennsylvania State Militia - Highest rank Private War of 1812 Illinois State Militia - Highest rank Captain Black Hawk War U.S. Army - Highest rank Brigadier General American Civil War U.S. Army - General of the Army Mexican War U.S. Army - Highest rank Major General Amrican Civil War U.S. Army - Highest rank Major General American Civil War NY. State Militia - Highest rank Brigadier General American Civil War U.S. Army - Highest rank Brevet Major American Civil War U.S.

Army - Highest rank Colonel Spanish-American War U.S. Army - Highest rank Colonel World War I U.S. Army - General of the Army World War II U.S. Navy - Highest rank Lieutenant World War II U.S. Navy Reserve - Highest rank Commander World War II U.S. Navy Reserve - Highest rank Commander World War II U.S. Navy Reserve - Highest rank Lieutenant Commander World War II Texas Air National Guard - 1st Lieutenant Did not serve in the Vietnam War Presidents Who Never Served in the Military American Presidents Military Decorations & Service Medals George Washington Army Distinguished Service Medal(4 oak leaf clusters) Navy Distinguished Service Medal World War I Victory Medal American Defense Service Medal European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign (9 service stars) World War II Victory Medal Army of Occupation Medal (Germany clasp) National Defense Service Medal (1 service star) John F. Kennedy Navy and Marine Corps Medal Purple Heart Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal (3 bronze stars) World War II Victory Medal Lyndon Johnson Asiatic-Pacific Campaign (2 service stars) World War II Victory Medal Gerald Ford World War II Victory Medal George H. W.

Bush War with Native Americans in Ohio Thomas Jefferson War between the United States and Britain lasting from (1812-1815) James Monroe Early stages of the American Civil War Abraham Lincoln End stages of World War I Franklin D. Roosevelt End stages of World War II Korean War End stages of the Korean War John Kennedy

Question: Who was president of the USA during the American Civil War?
Answer: Abraham Lincoln