The war was fought on multiple fronts, with the Union army, led by President Lincoln and generals like Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman, clashing with the Confederate forces, led by President Jefferson Davis and generals like Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson.

For those interested in a factual and in-depth understanding of the Civil War, several documentaries and historical series are available through web downloads:

The immediate trigger for the war was the election of Abraham Lincoln as President in 1860. A member of the newly formed Republican Party, which opposed the expansion of slavery, Lincoln's victory was seen as a threat to the Southern way of life. Before Lincoln's inauguration, seven Southern states seceded from the Union, citing states' rights and the threat to their institution of slavery.