Civil War 150
Ongoing special coverage of the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War
(In this drawing by Alonzo Chappel, Union and Confederate forces engage in close fighting during the Seven Days Battle on July 3, 1862. / AP)
We're following the Civil War, chapter by chapter. Click on the boxes below for installments in our series, view videos and photo galleries, find a Civil War battlefield, and much more.
A less-than-monumental city
CHAPTER 1 | The city that awaited Abraham Lincoln was a far cry from the populous, gleaming capital that it would become after the Civil War.
The Civil War and memory
CHAPTER 2 | When it comes to the Civil War, the history of oblivion has taken many forms, and it continues today.
- When Fort Sumter was fired on in 1861, modern America was born
- Who is to blame for first shot?
- Early in war, death an abstract notion
- Traces of the Confederacy in Washington
- For Civil War quiz-takers, geography poses no handicap
- The federal occupation of Alexandria spared, changed city
- Poll results: The lingering legacy of the Civil War
Bicentennial: The War of 1812
Navy turns to War of 1812 for help
(Courtesy of Naval History and Heritage Command / COURTESY OF NAVAL HISTORY AND HERITAGE COMMAND)
Faced with little public understanding of its mission, the Navy wants to use the War of 1812 bicentennial to tell its story. It’s launching an ambitious, three-year commemoration to mark the bicentennial of the often overlooked war.
A war shaped by rivers
CHAPTER 3 | The Union rout at Ball’s Bluff showed waterways were not to be ignored.
The Monitor’s enduring fascination
CHAPTER 4 | The ironclad alters the course of the Civil War in an epic clash in Hampton Roads.
Tweeting the Civil War
The Post tweets events in the words of the people who lived them, 150 years to the day after they happened.
Civil War events and commemorations
Upcoming celebrations marking the 150th anniversary of the Civil War.
Panelist discussion
Which event in the period between Shiloh and Antietam did not receive the attention it deserves?
Reading List: Books about Civil War
- The Union War
- The American Civil War: A Military History
- This Mighty Scourge: Perspectives on the Civil War
- Confederate Emancipation: Southern Plans to Free and Arm Slaves During the Civil War
- This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War
- Grant and Sherman: The Friendship That Won the Civil War
- First Lady of the Confederacy: Varina Davis’s Civil War
- Desperate Engagement: How a Little-Known Civil War Battle Saved Washington, D.C., and Changed the Course of American History
- Redemption: The Last Battle of the Civil War
- How the South Could Have Won the Civil War: The Fatal Errors That Led to Confederate Defeat
Civil War video
Civil War veteran finally laid to rest (1:31)
For many who do it, reenacting — or historical acting, or living history — is more than a weekend hobby. It is part of their life. Charleston native Jeff Antley, chairman of the 150th Firing on Fort Sumter Committee, and Mark Silas Tackitt, who flew from Seattle to portray federal Major Robert Anderson, speak about the nuances of creating a faithful reenactment.
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