Civil War And Its Legacy.
                     CIVIL WAR AND ITS LEGACY
Introduction
The Civil War in the United States began in 1861, after 
decades of simmering tensions between northern and 
southern states over slavery, states’ rights and 
westward expansion.
Source: www.history.com
The Civil War
The election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 caused seven 
southern states to secede and form the Confederate 
States of America; four more states soon joined them. 
The War Between the States, as the Civil War was also 
known, ended in Confederate surrender in 1865.
Source: www.history.com
The Conflict
The conflict was the costliest and deadliest war ever 
fought on American soil, with some 620,000 of 2.4 
million soldiers killed, millions more injured and much 
of the South left in ruin.
Source: www.history.com
Causes of the Civil 
War
Economic difference
In the mid-19th century, while the United States was 
experiencing an era of tremendous growth, a 
fundamental economic difference existed between the 
country’s northern and southern regions.
Source: www.history.com
Abolitionist 
sentiment
Growing abolitionist sentiment in the North after the 
1830s and northern opposition to slavery’s extension 
into the new western territories led many southerners 
to fear that the existence of slavery in America—and 
thus the backbone of their economy—was in danger.
Source: www.history.com
Reconstruction
The period following the end of the Civil War in April 
1865 became known as 'Reconstruction', characterised 
by a series of political battles over the extent of 
leniency the North should show to the defeated South. 
Source: www.bl.uk
The post–war years
Economic depression, accusations of corruption and 
continued racism created violent opposition and a 
rising white backlash against freedmen’s rights. 
The post–war years also witnessed the creation of 
white vigilante groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan, which 
sought to restore a white supremacist status quo 
through violence and intimidation, though many of 
these (including the Klan for a few decades) were 
suppressed by the President Ulysses S. Grant’s 
government in the 1870s.
Source: www.bl.uk
National Union 
Identity
During the period that then followed, labelled 
'Redemption' by Southerners, legislation 
disenfranchised African Americans, and imposed white 
supremacy by what were known as the Jim Crow Laws. 
As such, while the Civil War helped to forge a national 
Union identity, based on the ideals of freedom and 
equality, it also sowed the seeds of a myth of Southern 
victimisation and the romanticisation of the Antebellum 
South.
Source: www.bl.uk
Collective amnesia
In contrast, British collective memory might be better 
described as collective amnesia, with British 
involvement and contemporary debate about the war 
largely forgotten. 
Perhaps because of the extent of support for the 
Confederate states and subsequent desire to forget 
this preference towards the slave–holding states. 
However, the growing field of local history research has 
done much to explore the tensions surrounding 
Confederate support in Britain, especially in relation to 
the economic considerations of the cotton trade and 
the conflict’s impact on the nation.
Source: www.bl.uk
Trans–national 
context
Over the last decade especially, more attention has 
been drawn to Britain’s own engagements with both 
the Union and Confederacy, ensuring that the 
American Civil War is increasingly put into a broader, 
trans–national context, which can only benefit fields of 
study either side of the Atlantic.
Source: www.bl.uk