The American Civil War
ICSE Class 8 · History & Civics · Chapter 3
What this chapter covers
- Background of the American Civil War
- Causes of the war: slavery
- Causes of the war: North–South differences
- Beginning of the war
- Role of Abraham Lincoln
- The Gettysburg Address
- Results of the American Civil War
Key points
- The American Civil War (1861–1865) was fought between the Union (the North) and the Confederacy (eleven southern states).
- As the United States grew westwards, every new state raised the question of whether slavery would be allowed there.
- The North was industrial and used free labour; the South depended on cotton plantations worked by about four million enslaved people.
- The cotton gin (1793) made cotton very profitable and tied the South more firmly to slavery.
- Abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman, and the novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, turned many northerners against slavery.
- Tariffs, states' rights, the Missouri Compromise, Bleeding Kansas and the Dred Scott judgement deepened the North–South divide.
- Lincoln's election in 1860 led South Carolina and ten other states to secede and form the Confederate States of America.
- The war began with the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter on 12 April 1861 and ended with Lee's surrender at Appomattox on 9 April 1865.
- Gettysburg and Vicksburg (July 1863) were the turning point of the war.
- Lincoln saved the Union, issued the Emancipation Proclamation (1863) and secured the Thirteenth Amendment ending slavery; he was assassinated on 14 April 1865.
- In the Gettysburg Address (19 November 1863) Lincoln called for "a new birth of freedom" and described democracy as government of the people, by the people, for the people.
- Results: the Union was saved, slavery was abolished, about 620,000 soldiers died, the South was ruined, Reconstruction followed, and even India's cotton trade was affected.
Questions answered
Define a civil war. Between which two sides was the American Civil War fought?
A civil war is a war fought between two groups of people of the same country. The American Civil War was fought between the Union (the northern states) and the Confederacy (eleven southern states that had seceded).
Why did slavery grow stronger in the South after 1793?
The cotton gin made cotton growing very profitable. Planters grew more cotton, needed more workers, and depended more and more on enslaved labour.
Who were the abolitionists? Name two of them.
Abolitionists were people who worked to end slavery completely. Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman were two of them (Harriet Beecher Stowe is another).
Give three differences between the North and the South before the war.
The North was industrial while the South depended on plantation farming; the North used free, paid workers while the South used enslaved labour; the North wanted high tariffs while the South wanted low ones.
What is meant by secession? Which state seceded first?
Secession is the formal withdrawal of a state from a union or federation. South Carolina seceded first, in December 1860.
What was the immediate cause of the war?
The Confederate attack on Fort Sumter in Charleston harbour on 12 April 1861.
What was the Emancipation Proclamation? Why was it important even though it did not free everyone at once?
It was Lincoln's order of 1 January 1863 declaring free all enslaved people in the states fighting the Union. It made ending slavery an aim of the war, kept Britain and France from helping the South, and opened the Union army to Black soldiers.
When and why did Lincoln give the Gettysburg Address?
On 19 November 1863, at the dedication of a cemetery for Union soldiers who died in the Battle of Gettysburg.