U.S. Civil War Facts

Facts relating to the American Civil War, the Civil War Trust and battlefield preservation. Learn & Share!

• The war began when Confederate warships bombarded Union soldiers at Fort Sumter, South Carolina on April 12, 1861.

• The Civil War was fought in thousands of different places, from southern Pennsylvania to Texas.

• The northern states and the southern states fought over slavery and states rights.
  

  
  More than three million men fought in the Civil War about 900,000 for the Confederacy and 2.1 million for the Union.

• At the beginning of the war the Northern states had a combined population of 22 million people. The Southern states had a combined population of about 9 million.

• Fighting took place on each day of the war, which lasted approximately 1,396 days, from 1861 to 1865.

• The Civil War was the first time the national draft was used in American history.

• One-third of the soldiers who fought for the Union Army were immigrants, and nearly one in 10 was African American.

• The youngest soldier in the Civil War was a 9-year-old boy from Mississippi.

• Most Civil War soldiers marched 15 to 20 miles a day.

• In the first few battles each side did not have regular uniforms. This made it tough to figure out who was who.

• Disease was the chief killer during the war, taking two men for every one who died of battle wounds.

• Thirty percent of all Southern white males between the ages of 18 and 40 died in the war.

• The war ended in Spring, 1865.  Robert E. Lee surrendered the last major Confederate army to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse on April 9, 1865.

• The Northern armies were victorious, and the rebellious states returned to the Union.

• The Union victory meant re-admission for the seceded states and ended slavery.

• In the United States, there are more than 20 federal historic sites, 50 museums, and 70 national cemeteries dedicated to the Civil War.