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Photos taken from various sources set to "Ashokan Farewell" showing the tragedy that was the American Civil War . The American Civil War (1861–1865) was a civil war between the United States (the "Union") and the Southern slave states of the newly-formed Confederate States of America under Jefferson Davis. The Union included all of the free states and the five slaveholding border states and was led by Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party, which opposed the expansion of slavery into territories owned by the United States. Republican victory in the presidential election of 1860 led seven Southern states to declare their secession from the Union even before Lincoln took office. The Union rejected secession, regarding it as rebellion.
Hostilities began on April 12, 1861, when Confederate forces attacked a U.S. military installation at Fort Sumter in South Carolina. Lincoln responded by calling for a large volunteer army, then four more Southern states declared their secession. In the war's first year, the Union assumed control of the border states and established a naval blockade ... |