Best civil war general biography

ByJesse ClarkandMichele Gama Sosa

History says that the American Civil War — the deadliest in the nation's history with more than 600,000 killed out of 2.4 million who served, not to mention countless more wounded — began with Abraham Lincoln's election in 1860.

Worried the first Republican president would abolish slavery, on which the Southern economy was built, a total of 11 southern states seceded from the Union and created the Confederate States of America. They then seized Federal forts and property in their states.

Lincoln responded by marching armies towards the South. The war had begun. The Confederates were heavily outnumbered and outgunned by the far wealthier North (known throughout the war as the Union), but they managed to hold on for four brutal, bloody years.

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During that time, some of American history's most famous battles were fought — Shiloh, Antietam, Gettysburg, and Vicksb