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Introduction
As Abraham Lincoln took the oath of
office as president of the United States in March 1861, the
Union had already begun to dissolve. Between December 1860 and
February 1861, seven states of the Deep South had seceded
from the United States. These states had declared themselves
independent from the Union and formed a new government they
called the Confederate States of America.
President Lincoln was determined to
preserve the United States. During the early weeks of his administration,
Lincoln searched for a peaceful means of bringing the seceded
states back into the Union. These efforts came to an end on
April 12, 1861, when Confederate forces opened fire on the United
States Army at Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina. War
was now a reality. President Lincoln called for the army to
use force to restore the Union. In the weeks following the battle
at Fort Sumter, four more Southern states withdrew from the
Union and joined the Confederacy. The United States now faced
what was to be the bloodiest war in its history.
Because the war occurred at the same
time the United States was undergoing the Industrial Revolution,
many new inventions were used for the first time during the
Civil War. One of the most important of these new inventions
was the ironclad ship. The battle
of Hampton Roads between the ironclad CSS Virginia and
the USS Monitor not only affected the outcome of the
Civil War, but also changed naval warfare throughout the world.
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