The American Civil War

1861–1865 CE — North America, United States

Today: The United States

Abraham Lincoln won the presidency in 1860 opposing slavery's expansion into new territories, and eleven southern states seceded before he took office, forming the Confederacy. Their own declarations of secession named the protection of slavery as the cause. Four years of fighting killed around 750,000 people — more Americans than every other American war combined — as rifled muskets that could kill at 300 yards met generals still marching men shoulder to shoulder. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 turned a war for the union into a war against slavery; the Union's industrial capacity and manpower ground the South down, and Lee surrendered at Appomattox in 1865. Slavery ended and the union was settled as permanent — but within a generation the racial order it had underwritten was substantially rebuilt through law and violence.

Worth knowing: A grocer named Wilmer McLean moved his family away from the fighting after the war's first major battle was fought across his Virginia farm. Four years later, Lee surrendered to Grant in the parlor of his new house — the war, as he put it, began in his front yard and ended in his front room.

Pattern: Ideological movement — A belief system rises, spreads, institutionalizes, and then schisms — changing the rules people accept as legitimate.

Entry 195 of 240 in Precedent, a walk through the whole human story in order.