9781422272701

THE CIVIL WAR AND RECONSTRUCTION The election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 became a flashpoint in American history, as it directly led several southern states, starting with South Carolina, to secede from the Union and form the Confederate States of America. By April 1861, tensions had grown to the point that war between the states was imminent. It began on April 12, when gun batteries in Charleston Harbor fired on Fort Sumter, held by a federal garrison that refused to surrender the fort and return to the North. Lincoln called for volunteers to fight against the rebellion, a move that prompted four more southern states to secede and join the Confederacy. What followed was four years of bloody fighting that left over 620,000 men dead and caused widespread destruction. The purpose of the Civil War changed from a fight to save the Union to a fight to end slavery in early 1863, when Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation went into effect. The Proclamation, issued in the fall of 1862, declared that all slaves in areas of the country currently in rebellion against the US government were free. This did not affect slaves in the border states that remained loyal to the Union, or those in areas already under the control of the Union army. The Emancipation Proclamation helped to deprive the South of its labor force. Upon learning about emancipation, many slaves made their way to the closest Union lines. The Proclamation also established the United States Colored Troops, allowing free Black Americans the

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CONTEMPORARY ISSUES: REPARATIONS FOR SLAVERY