The US Civil War began in April 1861 when Confederate forces opened fire on Fort Sumter in South Carolina. This marked the start of the war between the Union states of the North and the Confederate states of the South. The war was fought over the issues of states' rights and slavery and resulted in major battles in Virginia and the Mississippi Valley. Key events and battles included the Union blockade of Southern ports, the capture of New Orleans in 1862, the surrender of Vicksburg in 1863, and the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863 where Lincoln later gave his famous Gettysburg Address dedicating the battlefield cemetery. The war ended in April 1865 with the surrender of Confederate forces.

1. US CIVIL WAR

2. On march 4 of 1961, Abraham Lincoln became in the
united states of America's president taking that oath of
office.
In his inaugural address as president he presented two
points of view to the southern states :
-“He promised that he would not interfere with the
slavery in any of them”.
- “But he warned that he would not allow them to
break up the united states by seceding”.
The confederacy did not take notice of Lincoln's
address. Therefore on April 12 confederate guns
opened fire on Fort Sumter.
This attack marked the beginning of the US Civil War.

3. Some people found really hard to take the
decision to decide which side to support.
The decision split families.
From the beginning of the war south ports
were blockaded by Union warships to
prevent the Confederacy cotton was selled
abroad and foreign supplies were
obtained.

4. The north outnumbered the south for
more than the double.
North were twenty-two million
people, while South were nine million
people (3.5 were slaves).
In spite of it the confederacy began the
war with many advantages but the biggest
one was that the war happened mostly in
the south.

5. The war was fought in two areas: Virginia and in
the Mississippi Valley.
The northerners conquered New Orleans sailing
Union ships commanded by the naval officer
David Farragut in April of 1862.
By spring of the next year, the Union armies
were closing in on Vicksburg.
An on July 4 General Ulysses made Vicksburg
surrender.
At the end of June 1863, Lee marched his army
into a small town called Gettysburg in
Pennsylvania.

6. The Emancipation
Proclamation was issued on
September 22 of 1862 to
made all slaves be free from
January 1, 1863, but only if
they lived in areas that
belonged to the
Confederacy..

7. In November 1864 General
William T. Sherman marched with
his army to through Georgia.
On December 22 the occupied the
city of Savannah.
Then Sherman marched trough
the Carolinas.

9. Gettysburg in Pennsylvania is remembered for
two things:
The first is the battle that was fought there.
The second is the speech that Abraham Lincoln
made there a few months later.
On November 19, 1863, Lincoln traveled to the
battlefield to dedicate part of it as a war
cemetery.
Lincoln’s speech in later years came to be seen
as a moving expression of faith in the basic
principles of democratic government.

10. The Gettysburg Address
 “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this
continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the
proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a
great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived
and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of
that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final
resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might
live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
 But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can
not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled
here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The
world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can
never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be
dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have
thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the
great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take
increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full
measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall
not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new
birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for
the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

11. References
 The American illustration of an American culture.
 Wikipedia.
 www.civilwar.com.