America has been part of some devastating battles in its long history. World War I and World War II were extremely difficult conflicts and were conflicts that maximally taxed the country's resources. But none of those conflicts can compare to the civil war not only in the brutality and devastation of human life, but also in the damage to the social fabric caused by that horrific conflict.
America is proud that it has never fought in its native land. Other than Pearl Harbor and 911, we have never been attacked on our own soil. So there was war against brother against brother, American against American, to make possible the possibility of war even within the borders of America.
The war statistics are staggering for a relatively low conflict. The war began on 12 April 1861. It was the Union that launched the first bloody assault on Fort Sumter in South Carolina. Civil war battles and legendary. We have come to preserve many of those historic battlefields to this day to honor the dead on both sides of this ****** conflict.
During the war, the North was at an advantage in preparation, equipment and supplies. But General Lee, who commanded the Confederate Army, was a brilliant strategist and fighting often resulted in massive casualties on both sides. When the final tally was drawn up, more than 970,000 American civilians died from the Civil War. Although it cannot be numerically compared to the heavy losses in the two subsequent world wars, the figure was 3% of the American population at the time. And since the majority of those killed in the war were from America's youth, the hope for its future, the blow this war had on the development of America's economy, was truly remarkable.
In modern times, we see civil war as a massive war to end the horrors of slavery in this country. And to be sure, the Civil War will forever remain a central part of black history and the starting point of the civil rights movement in America. But the causes of the civil war were complex and varied which only made negotiation and resolution of the war more difficult than before the conflict.
The issue being fought was the right of states to self-determination, which was balanced with the rights of the federal government to determine matters in individual states. On the surface, this may seem trivial compared to abolishing slavery, but in context, it is an important irony in the light of our very distant memory of our revolution against England for trying to impose undue control over the colonies. There was a relationship.
Americans are fiercely free people and that free spirit was born in the battles of the Revolutionary War where America firmly stated that they would no longer bow down to a monarch or allow a centralized government to have such extensive control over individual life. There was outrage at the way England tried to enslave the colonies, which led to the explosion known as the Revolutionary War. And much effort was put into the constitution and other important documents to ensure that the federal government would be severely limited from interfering in the lives of its citizens.
Apart from this, the protection of the Union as a country was also in the civil war. But it was the moral issue of slavery that made the civil war such an emotional issue and inspired people to fight with such brutality to defend their side. In the end, even Abraham Lincoln made slavery the central rationale of the war and determined that the end of this barbaric practice would be the legacy of this horrific struggle.
But one thing that was also a legacy of the Civil War was the determination that we, as Americans, would never turn our war machine on our citizens again. The war separated the families and literally led brother to war against brother. Since Reconstruction and the Union of America, this war has engulfed the nation's national psyche and this injury reminds us that we are one people and we will always be a man dedicated to truth, justice, and the
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