Key People
Abraham Lincoln
By almost every standard, Abraham Lincoln is rated as America’s greatest president. Had he been less skilled or less determined, the Civil War might very well have ended in the permanent division of the nation.
Jefferson Davis
To contemporary students of American history the name of Jefferson Davis is permanently linked with his role as president of the Confederate States of America. To Americans of the 1850s, however, Davis was a prominent member of the U.S. Senate and a significant figure in American politics.
Robert E. Lee
Lee commanded the Confederate armies during the Civil War and is considered a brilliant military general. For most of the years since the end of the Civil War, Lee has been accorded iconic status by many Americans, although modern critics have raised questions about Lee both as a general and as a white southerner, especially regarding his views on slavery and race.
Spotlight
Black Code of Mississippi
The Mississippi Black Code was the most extreme example of similar codes that sought to nullify the freedom of former slaves and to define their citizenship as virtual enslavement. Its existence proved to the United States Congress that southern states needed a more thoroughgoing reconstruction than that called for by President Andrew Johnson.
