Civil War Overview

The Union (Northern) Army of the Civil War

The American Civil war is one of the most if not the most influential events in American history. The war was fought between the Northerners (Union) and the Southerners (Confederates). There is controversial information on many aspects of the Civil War however here are the solid facts that lead to the Civil War. Abraham Lincoln was elected president of the United States in January of 1861. When he was elected, the south responded in fear because the southern states wanted to keep their slaves but knew that they were not able to because of the fact that Abraham Lincoln had anti-slavery views. Slowly but surely the southern states seceded from the Union due to differentiating views on slavery. The start of the Civil war is summed up greatly by “Pulitzer Prize-winning author James McPherson writes that, "The Civil War started because of uncompromising differences between the free and slave states over the power of the national government to prohibit slavery in the territories that had not yet become states. When Abraham Lincoln won election in 1860 as the first Republican president on a platform pledging to keep slavery out of the territories, seven slave states in the deep South seceded and formed a new nation, the Confederate States of America. The incoming Lincoln administration and most of the Northern people refused to recognize the legitimacy of secession. They feared that it would discredit democracy and create a fatal precedent that would eventually fragment the no-longer United States into several small, squabbling countries."” The official start date of the Civil War was April 12, 1861 when Confederate warships bombarded Union soldiers at Fort Sumter, South Carolina. This essay will exclusively cover the Union Army. The chain of command in the army is as follows, starting with the highest ranked: Army, Corps, Division, Brigade, Regiment, Company.

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