This Week in the United States - The American Civil War

This Week's Historical Theme: The United States

2 June 1865

A significant event throughout the history of the United States is the end of the American Civil War. The American Civil War (1861-65) was a war between the United States, and the 11 Southern states that seceded from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America. The conflict started because of the uncompromising differences between the free states and the slave states concerning their views on what power the government should have to prohibit slavery. When Republican Abraham Lincoln became president in 1860, he pledged to keep slavery out of the territories. Subsequently, 7 slave states in the deep South seceded from the Union forming the Confederate States of America. The Lincoln administration refused to recognise the legitimacy of secession fearing it would discredit democracy and fragment the United States into several small, conflicting countries.

On 12 April 1861, at Fort Sumter in Charleston Bay, the Confederate army open fired on the federal garrison, claiming the fort as their own, and triggering the start of the Civil War. In response, Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation calling for 75,000 volunteer soldiers to quell the Southern "insurrection", and 4 more slave states seceded and joined the Confederacy. Four years later, on 2 June 1865, Confederate General Edmund Kirby Smith, commander of Confederate forces west of the Mississippi, signed the surrender terms offered by Union negotiators. Smith's surrender is generally regarded as the formal end to the American Civil War as the last Confederate army ceased to exist.

Want to find out more about how the American Civil War ended? Click here for more information, or here for more about the after effects.