HST-392 An Enduring Conflict: the American Civil War
In the early morning of April 12, 1861, Confederate forces opened fire on Union Army troops at Fort Sumter, igniting the American Civil War. The shots fired that April morning were not spontaneous. The tension between North and South, freedom and enslavement, and two fundamentally different ways of life had been growing for decades. A cataclysmic event that reshaped the United States, resulted in nearly 700,000 casualties, and created a new definition of freedom. The American Civil War, despite being fought over 150 years ago, has consequences that still resonate with us today. This course aims to explore why. What caused the Civil War? How did the war reshape the United States? Why does it still capture the imagination of so many Americans? Throughout the course we will utilize podcasts, primary sources, including newspapers, letters, and images, secondary sources, and videos as we seek to answer these questions.