American Civil War course of four years. Intense combat left 620,000 to 750,000 people dead, more than the number of U.S. military deaths in all other wars combined. The war ended when General Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant at the Battle of Appomattox Court House. Confederate generals throughout the southern states followed suit. Much of the South's infrastructure was destroyed, especially the transportation systems. The Confederacy collapsed, slavery was abolished, and four million black slaves were freed. During the Reconstruction Era that followed the war, national unity was slowly restored, the national government expanded its power, and civil rights
Commemoration of the American Civil War on postage stamps Amendment. The Thirteenth Amendment was sent to the states before Lincoln's assassination, the Fourteenth passed over Johnson's active opposition, the Fifteenth passed during Grant's administration. In literature the onset of the Civil War occasioned important considerations of nationalism, citizenship and the nature of the American republic. Radical social changes involving communications, women's rights, civil rights, states' rights and other issues had already been set in motion before the Civil War, and accelerated through it into succeeding historical eras. The Second Wave of Immigration reshaped American society in its diversity and urban numbers leading to an explosion of internal commerce and