Assignment 4: A summary of the Civil War (1861-1865)

Good morning!

Today I’ll do a summary of one of the most important and bloodiest historical incident in American history- the The Civil War (1861-1865).
In the middle of the 19^th century the North and the South had a completely different way of life. People in the North lived mainly in the city. They had an organised system of education and the church, and their economy was based on industrial manufacturing and factories. The South, on the other hand, was dependent on crops such as cotton, sugar, and rice. Because of the hot climate they had not a lot of possibilities to become economically strong. They had few schools and churches which were rather unorganised. In other words, they were not as much developed as the North. Moreover, the Southerners had the feeling of paying unfairly more taxes. One very crucial aspect of the situation back then was the different opinion on slavery that distinguished the North and the South. While the former thought slavery was barbaric and inhuman, to the latter it was essentially because cotton harvest had to be done by hand and therefore took a long time. This is one of the reasons why the South needed slaves in order to maintain economy. Another important fact is that states in the South had the opinion that the State Laws were more important than the Confederate Wars which caused to the secession of several states (11 in total) from the US such as Arkansas, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia. They were now called the Confederate States of America of Confederacy. This new union consisted of 9 million citizens (4 million slaves). President Lincoln aimed to keep the nation united as he didn’t want states to leave the union just because they weren’t satisfied with the rules.

The North, which consisted of far more states than the South, underestimated the South’s determination to remain independent, so the Civil War lasted longer than expected. In the War itself, over 620,000 died. The end of war meant the end of slavery (-> Emancipation Proclamation), which meant financial ruin. Furthermore, it strengthened the role of the Federal Government. Infrastructure in the South was destroyed and had to be reorganised again. Men and Women were seeking for their place in the new society and they had to face consequences of the lost war. Some of them were seeking trust in religion (Bible Belt), the Ku-Klux-Klan against the Negroes was founded. Of course, there is a lot more to tell about the Civil War, but I wanted to keep my summary short.

I just want to point out what American citizens think about the Civil War today, as this incident hasn’t been forgotten yet and which still causes discussion.

Southerners claim that they were not fighting for slavery, but for independence. That President Lincoln fought in the name of freedom and abolition of slavery is considered as the “biggest lie in all of American history”. The War should be called the War of Northern Aggression and “if we had had anything like fair chance we should have won and established independency”. The Northerner’s point of view is likely to be against most of the Southerners arguments, but they especially claim that all names for the war, namely the War of Northern Aggression and War of Southern Independence are Southern names for the Civil War.