65 Facts Everyone Should Know About The American Civil War

Wilmer McLean's house was involved in the 1st Battle of Bull Run, where the Civil War began. After, he moved 120 miles away to Appomattox Courthouse to avoid further battles, and 2 years later, the Civil War ended in his parlor where General Lee surrendered to General Grant.

52. During the U.S. Civil War, former President John Tyler became a Confederate and was elected to serve in the Confederate congress. He is the only U.S. President to not be mourned officially in Washington D.C. due to his being a Confederate supporter.

53. The "rebel yell" that terrified the Union Army during the U.S. Civil War has been successfully reconstructed

54. Prior to the American Civil War, most citizens of the United States referred to their country in the plural ("The United States are wealthy", "The United States have a large population")

55. Major General Henry A. Barnum was shot through the side in the Civil War. Assumed dead, he was taken the prisoner and survived. He kept the bullet tract open as a trophy by running a ramrod through the wound every day. He was later shot in two more battles and survived them both.

Soon after the outbreak of the American Civil War, former President Franklin Pierce tried to assemble all other living former US presidents to use their influence to end the war.

57. The US Postal Service began home delivery during the Civil War after a postal worker became so torn up by seeing women lined up in the cold to see if a letter had arrived from a son or husband at the front lines that he started delivering mail to homes.

58. An officer in the American Civil War, Benjamin Runkle, was mistakenly left for dead on the battlefield. An obituary was written for him while he was still alive, but ironically Runkle outlived the man who wrote it, and in return wrote an obituary for his obituary writer

59. Frederick Douglass consulted with President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War and helped influence the Emancipation Proclamation. After President Lincoln’s death, Mrs. Lincoln sent Douglass her late husband’s walking stick.

60. During the Civil War, a man gained national recognition by repeatedly auctioning off a plain sack of flour. By doing so, he raised $250,000 which aided wounded soldiers.

The first American civil war reenactors were actually veterans of the war.

62. Many Civil War battles have two names because the Union named battles after natural features and the Confederacy after the man-made structures/towns nearby

63. Fountain Hughes lived through slavery, the Civil War, World War 1, World War 2, and the beginning of the Cold War.

64. The last surviving Civil War veteran lived long enough to have seen television.

65. Russians may have prevented France and England from entering the American Civil War