American Civil War American Civil War The American Civil War (also known by other names) was a war fought in the United States from 1861 to 1865. The Civil War is the most studied and written about episode in U.S. history. Primarily as a result of the long-standing controversy over the enslavement of black people, war broke out in April 1861 when secessionist forces attacked Fort Sumter in South Carolina shortly after Abraham Lincoln had been inaugurated as the President of the United States. The loyalists of the Union in the North proclaimed support for the Constitution. They faced secessionists of the Confederate
Names of the American Civil War and "War Between the States" have been used jointly in some formal contexts. For example, to mark the war's centenary in the 1960s, the State of Georgia created the "Georgia Civil War Centennial Commission Commemorating the War Between the States". In 1994, the U.S. Postal Service issued a series of commemorative stamps entitled "The Civil War/The War Between the States". During and immediately after the war, U.S. officials, Southern Unionists, and pro-Union writers often referred to Confederates as "Rebels". The earliest histories published in northern U.S. states commonly refer to the American Civil War as "the Great Rebellion" or "the