Civil The War
In A Nutshell
The American Civil War was the most deadly and arguably the most important event in the
nation's history. Sectional tensions enshrined in the Constitution erupted into a brutal war that
cost over 600,000 lives and cleaved a nation in two. Slavery was a root cause of the conflict, and
while the Thirteenth Amendment ended the practice at war's end, race relations continued to
dominate American politics and society well into the future. The war also increased American
economic power until it rivaled, and then surpassed, that of all other countries. And following the
war, Americans had a new sense of being a part of a single nation instead of a conglomerate of
states with their own institutions and histories.
Why Should I Care?
The Civil War is one of the mostif not the mostimportant event in the history of the United
States. The American Revolution...sure, it was important. The creation of the U.S.Constitution?
Yeah, that's key. The last episode of The Sopranos? Up there. But few things in American history
changed this country like the Civil War. It may not be too bold to say that everything in
American history leading up to 1860 was a cause of the Civil War, and everything that has
happened since was caused by the Civil War. Every part of American society was fundamentally
changed, from the role of the federal government to the status of African-Americans to the art,
music and culture of a nation. Over 600,000 Americans died in the conflict, more than in all
other American wars combined except for the Vietnam Warand all of them died on American
soil. Brothers fought brothers; fathers shot sons. What began as a small-scale bombardment of an
average fort in Charleston, South Carolina, grew and grew, ultimately killing more than of
the 2% population and reforming the United States in ways big and small.
But the Civil War and all its causes and effects cannot be absorbed easily. After all, it was a huge
conflict, brought about by deep-seated forces and fought across the entirety of the American
continent, from Gettysburg to Vicksburg, Savannah to San Francisco. So how do you get your
mind around an event of this magnitude? How do you try to understand what the Civil War was
all about?
Well, you start here at Shmoop, and as you read you think big. Imagine 150,000 men attacking
each other in a place like Maryland. Consider the noise, the fear, the terror, and the death.
Imagine yourself listening to the cries of the wounded in dirty hospitals, doctors operating
without anesthesia and more wounded men flooding in all the time. Think about the joy of newly
emancipated slaves, who had labored their entire lives under the watchful eyes and often violent
hands of white southern planters, finally free to determine their own destinies. And think about
the very meaning of the country. Is the United States one nation, indivisible... or are the United
States, a collection of linked but autonomous states? The Civil War changed even the language
we use to describe the nation; before the Civil War, Americans used the phrase "The United
States are...." After the war, that phrase became, as it is today, "The United States is...."
A cataclysmic conflagration like the Civil War profoundly changed the way in which Americans
envisioned their own nation, seeing it no longer as a grouping of autonomous states but as one
nation, indivisible. For better or for worse, the Civil War altered the fabric of the idea that is the
United States. That's definitely something to think about!