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A DIVIDED NATION
The fight over slavery was a key cause of the
war, but other crucial differences divided
the North and the South. Their economies
were quite separate. The South’s economy
was based on agriculture, especially cotton
(above), with slaves supplying the labor. The
North’s economy depended on trade and
manufacturing, and had most of the nation’s
banks, factories, and transportion.
GETTYSBURG
Fought in July 1863, the Battle of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania,
proved to be the turning point of the war. The Union army
took a strong defensive line and managed to hold back
Confederate attacks for three days. The ferocious fighting
led to heavy casualties on both sides. However, the
Confederates lost nearly one-third of their fighting force.
Their battered army retreated to the South and never
again recovered the strength to launch a major attack.SPIES AND SCOUNDRELS
Some of the most daring actions
of the war took place far from
the frontlines. Both armies used
spies to gather information about
their enemies. Virginian spy Belle
Boyd (right) rode her horse across
enemy lines to carry secrets to the
South. Sarah Thompson, a Union spy,
provided information that led to the
capture of a Confederate general.Civil War 123-
AFRICAN-AMERICAN SOLDIERS
At the start of the Civil War,
many African Americans worked
behind the lines to support the
Union. However, after Lincoln
issued the Emancipation
Proclamation in 1863, they were
allowed to join the army. About
200,000 African-American men
served in the army and the navy,
most of them Southerners who
had fled to the North. The most
famous African-American unit, the
54th Massachusetts Regiment,
included the sons of abolitionist
Frederick Douglass.Free
statesSlave
statesONLY 80 YEARS after the states of America had united to
win their independence, the Civil War (1861-65) bitterly
divided the nation and threatened to destroy the Union. The
war was fought between the Northern states, who supported
Abraham Lincoln’s federal government and hoped to bring
an end to slavery, and the Southern states, who withdrew from
the Union and formed their own government under Jefferson
Davis, in the hope of preserving slavery and their agricultural
way of life. The brutal four-year conflict killed more
Americans than any other war, and devastated much of the
South. The Confederacy was
defeated in 1865, and slavery
was abolished the same year.CONFEDERACY
In 1860, there were 18 free states, in
which slavery was banned, and 15
slave states, in which slavery was
allowed. The federal government
was opposed to slavery, and many
Southerners feared that if more
free states joined the Union from
the Territories, they would be
outnumbered. Eleven slave states
eventually split from the free states to
form the Confederate States
of America, or the Confederacy.Free states Slave states TerritoriesTerritoriesOregonCalifornia