Existing comment:
To Bind Up
The Nation's Wounds
Medicine During the Civil War
The years 2011-2015 represent the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War, the bloodiest war the United States has ever fought, with deaths on both sides totaling over 600,000.
The United States at the time had thirty-three states, fifteen of which allowed human slavery. The war was brought on when seven of the slave-holding states, on the election of Abraham Lincoln and the anti-slavery Republican party in 1860, seceded from the United States and instituted a new government. Called the Confederate States of America, its constitution was virtually identical to the Constitution of the United States, except specifically condoning and protecting slavery in perpetuity.
The United States did not officially recognize the secession of the slave-states, treating them rather as areas in rebellion against the legitimate government. When troops of South Carolina bombarded a United States fort in April 1861, the war began. Four years later, after 200,000 battle deaths, 400,000 deaths from camp diseases and other causes, and another 600,000 non-lethal cases of wounds and disease, the Confederate forces were defeated, the United States as a nation was preserved, and slavery in all parts of the country was abolished. |