American Civil WarStuff Happened · War
War · 1861–1865
American
Civil War
Four years, some ten thousand engagements, and three-quarters of a million dead settled whether the United States would survive, and whether it would survive half-slave.
Storming Fort Wagner · Kurz & Allison · public domain
The Civil War story
How the War Happened
The whole war as one through-line, how it was planned, won, and lost, year by year from 1861 to 1865. The connective tissue between the causes and the battles.
Read the war’s story 01Improvising a WarTwo amateur nations raise armies from nothing, and the dream of a short war dies at Bull Run.186102The Limited War EndsThe year’s huge battles kill the short-war dream, and Antietam turns a war for the Union into a war on slavery.186203The TurningVicksburg and Gettysburg, and why the war was really won in the West, with Black soldiers now in the fight.186304Coordinated AttritionGrant takes overall command and advances on every front at once, and the battlefield decides an election.186405The CollapseThe Confederacy runs out of men, food, and rail, and the surrender secures emancipation for good.1865