Chronological History of the American Civil War

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free blacks as well as slaves whose masters signaled their approval by setting them free before enlistment. No men still enslaved would be accepted as Confederate soldiers. Newspapers throughout the Confederacy immediately reported the widespread enlistment of thousands of black soldiers, but the actual results were far more modest. Only two units were ever created, both in Richmond. On the other hand, some slave owners did offer freedom, if they chose to fight for the South. When the war started, Nathan Bedford Forrest offered this to 45 of his slaves (which he considered as servants) to join him, offering them their freedom after the war, no matter how it turned out. They all joined him and although they had numerous opportunities to desert him, 44 stayed by his side until the end of the war. At the war’s end, when General Forrest’s cavalry surrendered in May 1865, there were 65 black troopers on the muster roll. Of the soldiers who served under him, Forrest said of the black troops: “Finer Confederates never fought.” The number of African-Americans, both slave and free, that served in the Confederate Army in a direct combat capacity was minor and was never official policy. After the war, the State of Tennessee granted Confederate Pensions to nearly 300 African Americans for their service to the Confederacy. While an accurate estimate of the number of African Americans who served in the Confederate armed forces may never be known, the United States Census of 1890 lists 3,273 African Americans who claimed to be Confederate veterans. The South was Greatly Outnumbered by the North A few facts you might not know about the Great American Civil War. The population of the United States on the eve of the war, according to the 1860 census was 31,443,321. States which would remain in the Union had a total population of 22,339,989. States that would form the Confederacy had a total population of 9,103,332. This figure included 3,521,110 slaves. More than 800,000 immigrants entered the United States from 1860-1865. The largest number of immigrants were: Germany (233,052), Ireland (196,359), & England (85,116). Also, according to the 1860 census the 6 largest cities in the United States were: New York (805,651), Philadelphia (562,529), Brooklyn (266,661), New Orleans (168,675), Charleston (40,578), & Richmond (37,910).

Lincoln's Best Speech - Second Inaugural Address A few facts you might not know about the Great American Civil War. It was March 4, 1865. The weather was awful: it had been raining for weeks. Riding down Pennsylvania Avenue at noon to the Capitol, Lincoln’s carriage churned through a foot of mud and standing water. A crowd, waiting for hours at the east front of the Capitol, now stood soaking wet deep in sludge. Above the Inaugural platform, dark clouds raced across the horizon, but as President Lincoln stood to take the Oath of Office, the sun suddenly burst through the clouds and flooded the scene with brilliant light. Standing in front of a reading desk, the new Capitol dome high behind him, Lincoln gave his second Inaugural Address. It was short, the shortest in history: seven hundred and three words. The last paragraph is comprised of about ten per cent of them and they are, in American memory, indelible. For Caroline R. Wright, the wife of the Civil War Governor of Indiana, then visiting Washington for the Inauguration, Lincoln wrote in her autograph album the words he had so recently spoken: “With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his