American Civil War

The American Civil War was fought from April 12, 1861 to May 26, 1865 between the Union, the Northern states, and the Confederacy, eleven Southern states that seceded to preserve slavery. Fighting began on April 12, 1861, when Confederate artillery bombarded Fort Sumter in South Carolina, after seven Deep South states responded to Abraham Lincoln's 1860 election by seceding and forming the Confederate States of America under President Jefferson Davis. The war ended in Union victory, the collapse of the Confederacy, and the abolition of slavery, which freed approximately four million African Americans.