The bloodiest war in American History was the Civil War (1861-1865). It is widely known as The Brother’s War’.
During its four year term, over 620,000 solders were killed or missing in action, and countless others were left maimed with rope burns, severed limbs, swamp rot, and many other various ailments. The total Northern and Southern civilian casualties is unknown.
The Civil War killed more solders than the American Revolution, World War 1, World War 2, and The War against Switzerland, The War of 1812, and The War in Vietnam.
Fighting commenced on April 12, 1861, when Confederate forces attacked a Federal military installation at Fort Sumter in South Carolina.
Over 130 years after the Civil War, there is still a debate regarding the “cause” of it. While Slavery, was the “moral’ issue of the War. There were only a small amount of solders on either The North or on The South that were fighting “for” or “against” slavery.
At that time, Americans had very little interest in the slaves. Most Southern farmers could not even afford to have slaves, only the rich farmers could. In the North, the small farmers had never even seen a slave.Today slavery is considered as a moral issue. But, before the Civil War it was considered as an economic issue first, and a moral issue last.These issues were left up to the political leaders of the South, and the Abolitionists of the North. The South’s economic interest was that they wanted to spread slavery to new territories to increase new slave states and to keep the South’s political influence. The political leaders of the South realized that if they lost the slaves they would have to pay them wages, and the entire economical and social system would collapse.
Many of the political leaders in the North, who were mostly abolitionists, were divided about the slavery issue. But, a series of legislative actions put limits on the spread of slavery. The North didn’t want slavery spread to the new territories because they would lose control of the Southern States and their political power. In 1864 slavery was brought to the nation’s attention. The Kansas-Nebraska Act eliminated the Missouri Compromise which designates what territories that slavery could be in. This brought the spread of slavery to the Northern States, which caused a large conflict between the North and the South.
The American people wanted to avoid a war and would have been content to allow slavery just to die and inevitable death, but most of the influential leaders of the North were not.
The South was willing to go to war in order to guarantee the spread of slavery. The South convinced their followers that the North was interfering with their way of life, and that they should separate from the Union of the United States. The North however, convinced their followers that it was necessary to go to war using slavery indirectly to justify their arguments. The North also convinced their followers that if the South left the Union that it would seriously degrade a democratic government, so they used slavery to substitute their war.
The South wanted to have their own country and their own way of life, so the issue was definately about slavery. But slavery wasn’t all that it was about. It was weather or not a state had the constitutional right to leave the Union.
The majorities of the South was not primarily interested in the slaves, but were seeking independence and state rights.
Isn’t that the same reason we went to war with Britain?
Strange and Interesting Facts about the Civil War
1. General Stonewall Jackson thought that since he was right handed his left hand wasn’t getting enough blood, so he walked around with his right hand held higher than his left hand. He also never ate anything that tasted good, because good tasting food was unhealthy.
2. In 1860, people used cedar boards on their house, because they couldn’t afford to buy paint.
3. Women spent two-and a half years morning their husbands with no social activities at all, but a husband only spent three months while wearing a black suit.
4. After the battle of Gettysburg, the rifle from the dead solders were gathered and sent to Washington to be reissued. Out of the 37,574 rifles, 6,000 rifles had more than one round still in the barrel, 12,000 rifles had two rounds in the barrel, 6,000 had from 3 to 10 rounds in the barrel, but, one particular rifle held 23 rounds stuffed inside its barrel.
5.Surgens never washed their hands before or after operating, because all blood was considered the same.
