Curtis Jerry Smothers - Freelance Blogger/Tutor

With the South's defeat all but certain, Lincoln took his second oath of office on the steps of the Capitol and urged his countrymen to unite and reconcile.

Jefferson Davis was the first and last president of the defeated Confederate States of America. He led an armed rebellion against the United States. Should he have been tried for treason?

From failed Illinois store clerk to leader of the Union Army. Read how Ulysses S. Grant saved the Union with his relentless and bull dog style. Yeah, he drank, but as Lincoln once observed, "He fights!"

"Little Mac" was a great organizer, and the troops loved him. A fighting general? Not so much.

When the dust settled after this early Civil War bloodbath, everyone -- North and South alike -- knew that the war was not going to be a walk in the park.

Tactically a draw, but the outcome emboldened Lincoln to go ahead with his Emancipation Proclamation.

Take a large group of POWs, fence them in and have them fend for themselves in unsanitary squalor and you have the typical prisoner of war camp during the Civil War. Read about the top ten hell holes.

This was Lee's last effort to invade the North and win Southern independence. Pickett's charge up Seminary Ridge and 5,000 Confederate dead put those dreams to bed.

When this Confederate redoubt finally capitulated, the Confederacy had one foot in the grave and another on a banana peel. Back east the Confederates had the day before lost the Battle of Gettysburg.