1861: The Civil War Began

Conflict over issues of how much control the federal government should have over the states, industrialization, trade, and especially slavery had increased tension between Northern and Southern states. President James Buchanan struggled with the secession crisis in his final months in office. In November 6, 1860 Abraham Lincoln was elected president, southern states were outraged at elected someone who is known for his anti-slavery views, threatened to leave the Union. As Lincoln was inaugurated in 1861 the crisis intensified and more slave states left the Union. At the end of 1860 South Carolina was the first state to secede, others followed in early 1861. Southern states that seceded from the Union set up an independent government, the Confederate States of America.  These events led to the outbreak of the Civil War--a brutal, bloody, four-year conflict that left the South defeated and ended slavery at the cost of more than half a million lives.