From the blood soaked plains of Manassas, to the smoke filled skies of Atlanta, and finally to the tear filled eyes at Appomattox. For four of the bloodiest years in the history of this Republic, the war raged. It started as Yanks and Rebs, it ended as "Americans!!"

The greatest test of democracy, or any government, is civil war, and in 1860 the United Sates still in it's development was befallen just such a test, the Civil War. On July 21, 1861 the Union army was to quell the Rebellion and many elites from Washington D.C drove their carriages out to observe the confrontation, which was assembling at Manassas (Bull Run). Under such observation the innocence of a young romantic democracy was to be lost, and what was left was a sample of the horror that was to come. Officers and soldiers who fought side by side in the Mexican War were now on opposite sides ready to fight each other. A new young President, Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), found he was left with a demoralized army and an increasing army of skeptics. After the incident at Bull Run, Lincoln turned to George Brinton McClellan (1826-1885) to reshape the scattering army. This was McClellan's greatest skill and accomplishment, for he did just that. He took a demoralized army and created a fighting machine. He did so in such short time and had such a presence with his troops that for this he is legendary. For the South they would gain a cunning and brilliant commander in Robert Edward Lee (1807-1870). Lincoln had offered Robert E. Lee the command of the Union forces on April 18, 1861, for at this time Lee was still in the United States Army, and this would only change when his home state of Virginia would change. Lee took an army of stragglers who were under clothed, under armed, and under manned, and turn this group of men into one of the most elite fighting forces of it's day.

"Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis both had major roles in this war. Trying to keep a struggling nation's economy from totally collapsing and making the right decisions about the welfare of their country, it was a wonder these two important figures in United States history didn't go insane from trying to keep up with it all."-Author Unknown

The Compromise of 1850
Kansas-Nebraska Act
Dred Scot vs. Sandford
The War Begins--Fort Sumter

Manasses- July 1861
Shiloh- April 6-7, 1862
Antietam- September 17, 1862
Emancipation Proclamation- September 22, 1862
Vicksburg- April 1863
Gettysburg- July 1-3 1863
Gettysburg Address- November 19, 1862
Lee Surrenders
Lincoln's Assination