At the start of the Civil War, Robert E. Lee was forced to choose between the country he had served for 30 years and his home state of Virginia. Though President Abraham Lincoln offered him command of
When Jefferson Davis announced the secession of his home state of Mississippi from the Union, he didn’t expect that he would soon be elected president of the Confederate States of America. As a vetera
The morning of September 17, 1862, dawned peacefully in the farming community of Sharpsburg, Maryland. But this day would be like no other in American history. The quiet would soon be shattered by an
After the Civil War ended in April 1865, the country needed to rebuild itself. Yet putting the country back together was not a simple task: Too much blood had been shed and too much hatred lingered b
Gettysburg, a quiet Pennsylvania farm town, was located at the intersection of nine major roads. The town, set amid rolling hills and valleys, was an ideal spot for a battle - but neither army planne
The North and the South had grown apart, developing different ways of life with different types of problems. To the South, compromise no longer seemed possible. Southerners wanted to govern themselve
When Abraham Lincoln became president of the United States in 1861, he faced the most severe crisis the nation had ever experienced. The Southern states had broken from the Union and formed the Confed