Civil War, U.S. - Unforgettable Sights

At the start of the War Between the States - when cows grazed near the White House (the home of America's presidents since John Adams took office) and daisies surrounded the Smithsonian (one of the country's national museums) - opposing ideals split the country in two. *

Seemingly irreconcilable differences caused fathers and sons to leave home "to fight," never to return again. In many cases, family members had no idea how their loved ones died - or where they were buried.

Did either side think the war would be over quickly? Despite the typical early enthusiasm to "fight for the right" of one's convictions, the war dragged on. By its end, the country and her people had been devastated - especially in the South.

While many Americans have heard of the places made famous by the Civil War, no one alive today has first-hand knowledge of what it was like to live through the conflict.  For that, we must go to the U.S. National Archives, where it is possible to "meet" the people involved, "visit" the scenes of conflict and "examine" the evidence of what actually happened in America's first highly photographed war.

• Harpers Ferry - where the abolitionist John Brown led his notorious October 16, 1859 raid on the federal arsenal (for which he received a death sentence) - seems an unlikely place for an event which (according to some historians) ignited the spark that set off the Civil War.
  
  
• Yorktown was a beautiful, seaside Virginia town in the spring of 1862. But the town was changing from an idyllic peacetime setting to a place of war.
  
  
• The picturesque Antietam Bridge (near Sharpsburg, Maryland) became the scene of the bloodiest battle of the war (and in all of American history) when General George McClellan's Union troops fought General Robert E. Lee's Confederate troops during September, 1862. The slaughter * was so appalling - with one-day casualties at nearly 23,000 men - that President Lincoln visited the battlefield.  Soon thereafter, he issued his Emancipation Proclamation.
  
  
• Cold Harbor, Virginia was transformed from a battlefield (where General Ulysses S. Grant commanded Union forces in June, 1864) to a macabre place of death (in April, 1865).
  
  
• Richmond, Virginia - capital of the Confederate States of America and location of its "White House" - underwent a vast transformation from bustling harbor town to devastated city.


• Norfolk's Navy Yard, once a place of prominence, was reduced to rubble by December, 1864.

To learn how family life was impacted, when Americans fought and killed each other, we can read novels written by authors who lived through the conflict.  One of the most popular at the time is still popular today.  Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott, is a semi-autobiographical tale - with some very sad parts - of the writer's own life.

* The link for "split the country is two" is a power-point animation, from the U.S. Military Academy, which graphically summarizes the "Prelude to the American Civil War."