DID YOU KNOW…?

• * The American Civil War, which lasted from 1861 to 1865, was the bloodiest conflict in US history during which as many as 620,000 soldiers were killed in the many battles between the northern and southern states.
• * There were a number of causes: a group of states in the south (known as ‘the Confederacy’) wanted to be independent, while the government and the states in the north (known as ‘the Union’) wanted to keep the USA as one country. With the government based in Washington D. C., the north was gaining more power and the southern states decided that this was not fair. Another issue being fought over was slavery. Southern farmers needed slaves to help them in the cotton fields and in their households, but the people in the north didn’t approve of this at all. They wanted to abolish slavery and begin to create racial equality.
• * Abraham Lincoln led the Union during the Civil War and issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 to abolish slavery. After the conflict ended in 1865 he gave a speech in which he urged ‘malice towards none’ and ‘charity for all’. He is considered by many to have been the greatest American president.
• * Ulysses S. Grant was major-in-chief of the Union army from 1864–5. He later became the eighteenth president of the USA.
• * The Confederacy was led by Jefferson Davis, and served by General Robert E. Lee. Thomas ‘Stonewall’ Jackson was another important general fighting for the South. He got his nickname when he was spotted by a fellow general standing straight and tall, like ‘a stone wall’. Jackson died when he was accidentally shot by one of his own men.
• * John Brown was an abolitionist (a person who wanted an end to slavery) who tried to free as many slaves as he could by giving them weapons so they could make their way to freedom in Canada.
• * The weapon most commonly used by the Union soldiers was the musket. Swords and sabres were also used by the cavalrymen on both sides but these were soon replaced by rifles and huge guns called cannons, which needed a team of up to six people to prepare to fire. Landmines were also planted which, when tripped, could kill many soldiers at once.
• * The Union’s uniforms were blue. The Confederate’s were grey – hence the nicknames of ‘Blue’ and ‘Grey’ for the northern and southern armies.
• * There were several major battles during the war, the most famous being the Battle of Gettysburg where more men died than in any other battle of the Civil War. It was won by the Union and said to be the turning point of the war.
• * On 9 April 1865 Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia. The bloody Civil War had finally come to an end.