86 Brutal Facts About the American Civil War for History Fans

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.

77. 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.

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

79. 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

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

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

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

83. On October 19, 1864, Confederate soldiers slipped across the border from Canada and looted and robbed their way through Vermont during the American Civil War. They stole $208,000 or around $3 million in 2014 money

84. The Declaration of Causes of Seceding States from 5 states during the civil war used the word slave or a variant over 80 times. It also referred to the north as "non-slave-holding States".

85. If a wealthy person got drafted during the American Civil War, they could pay a substitute to go to war for them.

During the Civil War, the Union ignited 8,000 lbs of gunpowder, destroying a mine under the Confederate encampment, then proceeded to charge into the crater from the explosion, got stuck in said crater, and were brutally massacred due to the Confederate high ground.