The American Civil War was one of the greatest conflicts in American history.

The war began on April 12, 1861, with the Battle of Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina. The conflict resulted from tensions between the North and the South, principally over the issues of slavery and its expansion, state’s rights, and regional economic competition. Since 1820, Northerners and Southerners attempted to politically compromise on these questions. Each side entered into various agreements, including the Missouri Compromise, the Compromise of 1850, and the Kansas-Nebraska Act. While each of these compromises sought to ease tensions, none of them fully solved the problems, namely the slavery issue, that existed between the two regions.

Throughout the 1850s, tensions between the North and the South escalated with violent confrontations. This was especially evident in “Bleeding Kansas.” Some Northerners became convinced that Southerners unfairly dominated the legal system in the court case of Dred Scott v. Sandford (1856), which held that slaves were property and not citizens. John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry in 1859 raised tensions further, as Brown hoped to seize the federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry in what is now West Virginia to arm the slaves in the South. The raid failed, and Brown was executed.

Finally, the election of Abraham Lincoln, a member of the Republican Party, in November 1860 as president convinced many Southerners that slavery soon would end within the United States. Eleven Southern states seceded from the Union between December 1860 and June 1861, creating the Confederate States of America and beginning the American Civil War.

Despite the divided sentiments within Ohio regarding the war, Ohioans still contributed greatly to the Northern victory. A number of prominent generals, including Irvin McDowell, Don Carlos Buell, Philip Sheridan, George McClellan, William T. Sherman, and Ulysses S. Grant, all came from Ohio. The Civil War also was an opportunity for several Ohioans to make a name for themselves and to use their fame to gain political power. Following the war, Ohio veterans Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James Garfield, and William McKinley all were elected to the presidency of the United States.

Source:

Ohio History Central http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=463