While America has seen many battles and wars, the Civil War was one of, if not the greatest, wars of all time. The Civil War defined the kind of nation America would be. It also forever changed the lives of slaves and set the tone for how America would be run. Divisions between the free North and the slave South erupted into full-scale conflict following the election of Abraham Lincoln to the presidency in 1860. 11 The Southern states seceded from the Union, collectively turning their backs on the idea of ​​a single American nation. Lincoln, who had only been in power for six weeks, declared these acts of secession illegal and asked Congress for 500,000 troops to crush what threatened to be an aggressive rebellion. Say no to plagiarism. Get a custom essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essayIn April 1861, the first shots were fired and what followed became a national tragedy of unimaginable proportions. More than 600,000 soldiers were killed and millions more were injured. Large parts of the South were ravaged by heavy fighting, and the Union nearly collapsed under determined Confederate forces. The war itself began hesitantly, but after the Battle of Bull Run, Manassas, Virginia, in July 1861, it was clear that the war would end. last several months, or even several years. Huge battles raged in places like Fredericksburg, Chickamauga, and Shiloh as well as Virginia and Tennessee, where 40 percent of the war's 10,000 engagements took place. Winning victory after victory over misled Union forces, Confederate General Robert E. Lee invaded Maryland. in September 1862. But there he suffered a major loss during the Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest engagement of the war. The following year, Lee defeated the Union army at Chancellorsville and invaded Pennsylvania, leading to the decisive Battle of Gettysburg in which 50,000 men were killed or wounded and Lee was forced to retreat to Virginia to avoid never again invade the North. In the West, Union General Ulysses S. Grant captured the important Confederate town of Vicksburg on the Mississippi River on July 4, 1863, the same day news of the Union victory at Gettysburg reached in Washington. But despite these major victories, the war was still not over. Grant launched his Overland Campaign in 1864 and fought a series of major battles. He hoped to destroy Lee's army using a strategy of attrition, but this tactic failed. In retaliation, Union General William Tecumsah Sherman marched from Atlanta to Savannah, burning the countryside in the process. Keep in mind: this is just a sample. Get a personalized article from our expert writers now. Get a Custom Essay By the spring of 1865, the South was exhausted, and on April 9, Lee finally surrendered to Grant at the Appomattox Courthouse, effectively ending the war. Although most Americans knew that the central reason for the war was slavery, it was not until the Battle of Antietam in September 1862 that Lincoln began to emancipate slaves. On January 1, 1863, Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation, freeing all slaves in captured Confederate territories. From that point on, the war officially became a war over the issue of slavery. Yet it was not until after the war, in December 1865, that the 13th Amendment was ratified, finally freeing all slaves in America..