Answer:
The American Civil War was fought between the United States (Union) and the Confederate States of America (Confederacy) from 1861 to 1865. The Union won the Civil War after defeating the Confederate armies and capturing their president, Jefferson Davis, in May 1865. The war resulted in the abolition of slavery and the restoration of the United States as one nation.
The Civil War was a conflict many years in the making. The divide between the North and South began to widen after the American Revolution. Industrialized northern states gradually passed laws freeing enslaved people, while southern states became increasingly committed to slavery. Many southerners came to view slavery as a linchpin of their agricultural economy, and as a justifiable social and political institution.
Some important events of the Civil War include: The election of Abraham Lincoln as U.S. president in 1860, which triggered the secession of 11 Southern states; The attack on Fort Sumter in South Carolina on April 12, 1861, which marked the beginning of the war; The Battle of Antietam in Maryland on September 17, 1862, which was the bloodiest single-day battle in American history; The Emancipation Proclamation issued by Lincoln on January 1, 1863, which declared that all slaves in the rebel states were free; The Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania on July 1-3, 1863, which was the turning point of the war and the site of Lincoln's famous Gettysburg Address; The siege and capture of Vicksburg, Mississippi, by Union forces on July 4, 1863, which gave the Union control of the Mississippi River and split the Confederacy in two; The surrender of General Robert E. Lee to General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, on April 9, 1865, which effectively ended the war.
During the Civil War, elections were held in both Union and Confederate states. In 1864, Abraham Lincoln won re-election against opponents who wanted to sign a peace treaty with the southern states.
After the end of the war, efforts were made to permanently dismantle the war-making abilities of those nations. Factories were destroyed and former leadership was removed or prosecuted. War crimes trials took place in Europe and Asia, leading to many executions and prison sentences. Millions of Germans and Japanese were forcibly expelled from territories they called home.