The
American Civil War, widely known in the
United States as simply the
Civil War as well as other
names, was a
civil war fought from 1861 to 1865 to determine the survival of the Union or independence for the Confederacy. Among the 34 states in January 1861, seven Southern
slave states individually declared their
secession from the United States and formed the
Confederate States of America. The
Confederacy, often simply called the
South, grew to include eleven states, and although they claimed thirteen states and additional western territories, the Confederacy was never diplomatically recognized by any foreign country. The states that remained loyal and did not declare secession were known as the
Union or the
North. The
war had its origin in the factious issue of
slavery, especially the extension of slavery into the western territories. After four years of combat, which had left around 750,000 Americans, Union and Confederate, dead and had destroyed much of the South's infrastructure, the Confederacy collapsed and slavery was abolished. Then began the
Reconstruction and the processes of restoring national unity and guaranteeing
civil rights to the freed slaves.