He had experience in Congress as both a representative and senator, and had been secretary of war under President Franklin ...

By Febrary 1, 1861, six more states -- Mississippi ... insisted that the war was not about slavery or black rights; it was a war to preserve the Union. His words were not simply aimed at the ...

Beginning with a searing indictment of slavery, this first episode dramatically evokes the causes of the war, from the Cotton ... questions of Union and states' rights, John Brown at Harpers ...

The American Civil War destroyed slavery in the South. At first, most white Americans denied what would eventually seem self-evident. But black Americans saw clearly that the sectional conflict was ...

Laura Edwards, Peabody Family Professor of History, Duke University, North Carolina and author of A Legal History of the Civil War and Reconstruction: A Nation of Rights 'Using the proposed but ...

Nigel Hamilton illuminates the conflict through a joint examination of its commanders.

bridging communications between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans for the very first time — just as the Civil War tore apart north and south — on this day in history, Oct. 24, 1861. The lines ...

The pressures of the 1861-65 Civil War ... While some maintain the war was fought for "state's rights", most historians agree it was over slavery, which the South sought to preserve.