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33. A House Divided

Fort Sumter to Gettysburg: what each side had, the first blood, the beliefs each held sacred, Antietam, and the generals and the men.

33. A House Divided

This portrait of a solitary African-American soldier brings the personal suffering and the deeper meaning of the Civil War into focus. The most destructive war…

33a. Fort Sumter

Confederate forces shelled Fort Sumter for three and a half days before Northern commander Major Robert Anderson surrendered. This image depicts Fort Sumter as…

33b. Strengths and Weaknesses: North vs. South

Within days of the fall of Fort Sumter, four more states joined the Confederacy: Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas. The battle lines were now d…

33c. First Blood and Its Aftermath

This map shows the situation at Bull Run in July 1861. When viewing the enlargement, note how close the fighting was to the Northern capital of Washington, DC…

33d. Sacred Beliefs

The letter that Union soldier Major Sullivan Ballou wrote to his wife, Sarah, a week before the First Battle of Bull Run expressed his belief that he fought fo…

33e. Bloody Antietam

This photo was taken on the Antietam battlefield in October 1862. A month later, on November 7, 1862 , Lincoln sacked General McClellan and replaced him with…

33f. Of Generals and Soldiers

Robert E. Lee symbolized the best of the South for many people. He was pardoned for treason by President Johnson after the war. The battles that caused the lo…

33g. Gettysburg: High Watermark of the Confederacy

The Meade ArchiveGeneral George Meade, the Union Commander at Gettysburg, was credited with the victory that changed the course of the war. President Lincoln…

33h. Northern Plans to End the War

Candace Scott/Ulysses Grant homepageIn this photo, taken in the summer of 1864, Ulysses S. Grant stands with his most famous horse, Cincinnati. This magnificen…

33i. The Road to Appomattox

Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee signed the surrender for the Army of Northern Virginia on April 9, 1865, in Appomattox Court House, Virginia. The surrender…