On April 12, 1861, Confederate cannons under the command of General Pierre G.T. Beauregard opened fire on Federal forces at Fort Sumter. With this act, the Confederate States of America — which would number eleven states from the South after the fall of Fort Sumter — declared war on its Northern counterpart. The war (referred to as a revolution in the South and a rebellion in the North) would last four bloody years and cost the lives of an estimated 600,000 soldiers.

At the heart of the Civil War was the issue of slavery and whether each state had the right to decide for itself if slavery would be permitted within its borders. To white Southerners, slavery — and control of its 3,860,000 black slaves — was crucial both economically and culturally. They insisted that their farming economy could not survive and prosper without the cheap labor provided by slaves. Besides, they claimed, blacks were inferior and needed to be watched over and cared for by their white masters.

Most Northern states had already banished slavery and were pressing for its abolition in the rest of the United States and in the two million square miles of land west of the Mississippi. White Southerners viewed abolition as arrogant and a direct threat to their traditions and way of life. After decades of political wrangling, court cases, and compromises, the issue came to a head with the election of Abraham Lincoln as President in 1860.

Lincoln had declared himself firmly opposed to slavery and its introduction in the western territories, but he was willing to let it exist and die a natural death in states that already sanctioned it. His position did not appease Southerners, especially since a majority of the newly elected Congress was firmly antislavery. It would not be long, proslavery advocates warned, before the new President and his Congress flexed their political muscles and placed more and more restrictions on slavery. They had to act quickly before it was too late. And so, on December 20, 1860, South Carolina passed an ordinance of secession, proclaiming that the union previously existing between it and the other states was dissolved. Within weeks, six other Southern states adopted their own ordinances of secession.

This move took Lincoln and most Northerners by complete surprise; the bombardment of Fort Sumter three and a half months later sent them into action. Lincoln put out an urgent call for 75,000 volunteers — the first of many such calls — to defend and maintain the Union. Meanwhile, a second wave of secession strengthened the Confederacy, and broadsides and newspaper ads proclaimed the need for able-bodied soldiers.

Men on both sides rushed to sign up. Would-be soldiers crowded the recruitment centers in large cities or signed on with locally organized units. Emotions ran so high that enlistment quotas were surpassed everywhere. Caught up in the fervor of the moment were boys from both the North and the South.

No one actually knows how many boys were able to join their side’s army. Record keeping (when it existed at all) was extremely sloppy at the time, and enlistment procedures were so lax that most boys who claimed to be eighteen — which was the legal age of enlistment at the opening of the war — were allowed to sign up unchallenged. One study made by the U.S. War Department at the close of the nineteenth century estimated that of the 2,100,000 who served in the Union Army, over 800,000 were seventeen years old or younger. Of the 850,000 soldiers the Confederacy sent into battle, between twenty and thirty percent were underage.

Why these boys were so eager to join varied a great deal. Of course, many boys knew what the issues were and willingly put their lives at risk for their beliefs. But a surprising number had little notion or understanding of the political and social implications of the war. They had simply been caught up in the “war fever” that swept the country and wanted to be a part of what they thought would be a brief but glorious adventure. Others enlisted hoping army life would be an exciting alternative to the routine of endless farm chores back home. Still others signed on for no better reason than because their friends had, or because they didn’t want to appear cowardly or sympathetic to the enemy.

While their motives for enlisting differed, these boys did have one thing in common: They loved to write. Almost every soldier sent letters home, and a surprising number kept detailed journals of their experiences. Usually, their writing styles were direct and simple, and their spelling was often highly creative. What is more, they tended to focus on the everyday events of army life — the bad coffee and lack of food, the tedious daily routine, the hours of marching, and their actions in battle. Yet it is through this intense focus on details that they are able to bring this war so fully alive for us today.

After four years of civil war, after the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives and a massive destruction of property, the Union was indeed restored and the slaves were freed from their bondage. Gone, too, was the idea that any state or collection of states could decide to break free of the others or that the federal government was subservient to the states. In its place emerged a stronger central government, one that would orchestrate the taming and settling of the vast West, become a majority world power, and play a larger and larger role in the lives of its citizens.

The Civil War also changed the boys who fought in it. It robbed them of their childhoods, forcing them to confront a hateful and violent adult world. But like the Union they fought for, those who survived came out stronger for their scars and wiser for their experiences.