After the election of Abraham Lincoln , eleven Southern states seceded from the union between late 1860 and 1861, establishing a rebel government, the Confederate States of America on February 9, 1861. The Civil War began when Confederate General Pierre Beauregard opened fire upon Fort Sumter in South Carolina.
The next four years were the darkest in American history as the nation tore itself apart over the long and bitter issues of slavery and states rights. The increasingly urban, industrialized Northern states (the Union) eventually defeated the mainly rural, agricultural Southern states (the Confederacy), but between 600,000 and 700,000 Americans on both sides were killed, and much of the land in the South was devastated. In the end, however, slavery was abolished, and the Union was restored.
Lincoln's Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution that officially abolished and continues to prohibit slavery and involuntary servitude. It was adopted on December 6, 1865.
Lincoln's Timeline including the "A House Divided" speech that was Lincoln's response to the Drew Scott decision . The Emancipation Proclamation that freed all slaves, and the Gettsburg Adress is also included. He gave the speech at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania (the Northern states defeated the Confederate states ). He went to the battlefield to dedicate it as a military cemetery.
