U.S. Civil War The American Civil War is the bloodiest conflict that the United States has ever been involved in. The conflict between the Union and the Confederacy lasted from 1861 until 1865. The conflict between the Union and the Confederacy was centered on issues of states' rights vs. federal authority, westward expansion, and the most prominent issue, slavery.

The Union was comprised of 23 states and was led by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln with the aid of military leaders that included Generals Ulysses S. Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman, George Meade, Ambrose Burnside, and George McClellan ("Civil War: Union Military Leaders Photo Gallery"). The Confederacy was comprised of 11 states, which seceded from the Union in 1860 and 1861. The first Confederate states to secede from the Union were located in the Deep South and included Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi,

Arkansas, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia seceded from the Union after the Civil War began ("Confederate States of America"). The Confederate states were led by President Jefferson Davis and Vice-President Alexander Stevens, and Confederate Generals Robert E. Lee, Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson, Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard, and Braxton Briggs ("Civil War: Confederate Leaders Photo Gallery").
The U.S. Civil War broke out on April 12, 1861 after Confederate forces fired upon Ft. Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina. Of all the battles fought during the U.S. Civil War, the Battle of Gettysburg is considered to be the most important. The Battle of Gettysburg lasted from July 1 to July 3, 1863. The battle began on July 1 as Lee prepared to assemble his Confederate forces in Gettysburg after being informed that the Army of the Potomac was on its way south. Concurrently, Confederate divisions in A.P. Hill's command had been approaching Gettysburg in search of supplies only to find that "two Union cavalry brigades had arrived the previous day" ("Battle of Gettysburg"). As both armies marched onto Gettysburg, Confederate forces were able to drive the "outnumbered Federal defenders back through town to Cemetery Hill, located a half…