Description The American Civil War was an internal conflict fought in the United States from 1861 to 1865. The Union faced secessionists in eleven Southern states grouped together as the Confederate States of AmeThe American Civil War was an internal conflict fought in the United States from 1861 to 1865. The Union faced secessionists in eleven Southern states grouped together as the Confederate States of America. The Union won the war, which remains the bloodiest in U.S. history.
Among the 34 U.S. states in February 1861, seven Southern slave states individually declared their secession from the U.S. to form the Confederate States of America. War broke out in April 1861 when Confederates attacked the U.S. fortress of Fort Sumter. The Confederacy grew to include eleven states; it claimed two more states, the Indian Territory, and the southern portions of the western territories of Arizona and New Mexico (called Confederate Arizona). The Confederacy was never diplomatically recognized by the United States government nor by any foreign country. The states that remained loyal, including border states where slavery was legal, were known as the Union or the North. The war ended with the surrender of all the Confederate armies and the dissolution of the Confederate government in the spring of 1865.
The war had its origin in the factious issue of slavery, especially the extension of slavery into the western territories. Four years of intense combat left 620,000 to 750,000 soldiers dead, a higher number than the number of American military deaths in World War I and World War II combined, and much of the South's infrastructure was destroyed. The Confederacy collapsed and 4 million slaves were freed (most of them by Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation). The Reconstruction Era (1863–1877) overlapped and followed the war, with the process of restoring national unity, strengthening the national government, and granting civil rights to freed slaves throughout the country.... More
Description The War of 1812 was a military conflict that lasted from June 1812 to February 1815, fought between the United States of America and the United Kingdom, its North American colonies, and its Native AmeThe War of 1812 was a military conflict that lasted from June 1812 to February 1815, fought between the United States of America and the United Kingdom, its North American colonies, and its Native American allies. Historians in the United States and Canada see it as a war in its own right, but the British often see it as a minor theatre of the Napoleonic Wars. By the war's end in early 1815, the key issues had been resolved and peace returned with no boundary changes.
The United States declared war for several reasons, including trade restrictions brought about by the British war with France, the impressment of as many as 10,000 American merchant sailors into the Royal Navy,[5] British support for Native American tribes fighting European American settlers on the frontier, outrage over insults to national honor during the Chesapeake–Leopard Affair, and interest in the United States in expanding its borders west. The British government, which felt it had done everything in its power to try to avert the war, were dismayed by the American declaration, and believed it to have been an opportunistic ploy by President Madison to annex Canada while Britain was fighting a ruinous war with France. The view was shared in much of New England and for that reason the war was widely referred to there as Mr Madison’s War. As a result, the primary British war goal was to defend their North American colonies.
The war was fought in three theatres. First, at sea, warships and privateers of each side attacked the other's merchant ships, while the British blockaded the Atlantic coast of the United States and mounted large raids in the later stages of the war. Second, land and naval battles were fought on the U.S.–Canadian frontier. Third, large-scale battles were fought in the Southern United States and Gulf Coast. At the end of the war, both sides signed and ratified the Treaty of Ghent and, in accordance with the treaty, returned occupied land, prisoners of war and captured ships (with the exception of warships due to frequent re-commissioning upon capture) to their pre-war owners and resumed friendly trade relations without restriction.
With the majority of its land and naval forces tied down in Europe fighting the Napoleonic Wars, the British used a defensive strategy until 1814. Early victories over poorly-led U.S. armies demonstrated that the conquest of the Canadas would prove more difficult than anticipated. Despite this, the U.S. was able to inflict serious defeats on Britain's Native American allies, ending the prospect of an independent Indian confederacy in the Midwest under British sponsorship. U.S. forces took control of Lake Erie in 1813, and seized western parts of Upper Canada, but further American offensives aimed at Montreal failed, and the war also degenerated into a stalemate in Upper Canada by 1814. In April 1814, with the defeat of Napoleon, Britain now had large numbers of spare troops and adopted a more aggressive strategy, launching invasions of the United States; however, an invasion of New York was defeated at Plattsburgh, and a second force, although successfully capturing Washington, was ultimately repulsed during an attack on Baltimore. Both governments were eager for a return to normality and peace negotiations began in Ghent in August 1814. These repulses led Britain to drop demands for a native buffer state and some territorial claims, and peace was finally signed in December 1814, although news failed to arrive before the British suffered a major defeat at New Orleans in January 1815.
In the United States, late victories over invading British armies at the battles of Plattsburgh, Baltimore (inspiring the United States national anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner") and New Orleans produced a sense of euphoria over a "second war of independence" against Britain.[10][11] This brought an "Era of Good Feelings" in which partisan animosity nearly vanished in the face of strengthened American nationalism. The war was also a major turning point in the development of the U.S. military, with militia being increasingly replaced by a more professional force. The U.S. also acquired permanent ownership of Spain's Mobile District, although Spain was not a belligerent.
In Upper and Lower Canada, British and local Canadian militia victories over invading U.S. armies became iconic and promoted the development of a distinct Canadian identity, which included strong loyalty to Britain. Today, particularly in Ontario, memory of the war retains significance, because the defeat of the invasions ensured that the Canadas would remain part of the British Empire, rather than be annexed by the United States. The government of Canada declared a three-year commemoration of the War of 1812 in 2012, intended to offer historical lessons and celebrate 200 years of peace across the border. At the conclusion of the bicentennial commemorations in 2014, a new national War of 1812 Monument was unveiled in Ottawa.
Re-enactors (in UK uniforms) fire muskets toward the "Americans" in this annual commemoration of the June 6, 1813 Battle of Stoney Creek
The conflict has not been commemorated on nearly the same level in the modern-day United States, though it is still taught as an important part of early American history, and Dolley Madison and Andrew Jackson's respective roles in the war are especially emphasized. The war is remembered in Britain primarily as a footnote in the much larger Napoleonic Wars occurring in Europe, which effectively ended in 1815 at the Battle of Waterloo.... More
