While serving in Congress, Thomas Jefferson introduced a bill that would prohibit slavery in any state admitted to the United States in future. This measure, which could have prevented the American Civil War decades later, was defeated by a single vote. (source)

Perhaps the worst law ever passed by the United States federal government may have been the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Fugitive slave legislation had been around since 1793, but the new act gave law enforcement officers in the Northern States carte blanche to pursue and arrest fugitive slaves, and even to compel civilians to assist. Slaves so captured would be sent back south, without being able to defend themselves or produce evidence that they were not in fact slaves. Furthermore, the arresting officer received a bounty of $10 for each slave returned. Despite the significant incentives to catching slaves, only about 300 slaves were captured and returned between 1850 and 1861. The only real effect that the Fugitive Slave Act had was to exacerbate bad feelings between the southern states and the northern states, which would lead to the U. S. Civil War in 1861. (source)

Ambrose Burnside.

The word "sideburns" comes from the name of Ambrose Burnside, a Union General during the U.S. Civil War, who trimmed his facial hair in a curious style. (source)

Clear descriptions of what we now call post-traumatic stress disorder date from at least as early as the U.S. Civil War. (source)

In the American Civil War, Robert E. Lee, general-in-chief of the Confederate armies that fought to maintain slavery, was morally opposed to slavery; he had freed his slaves in the late 1840s, believing that "slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil in any society, a greater evil to the white man than the black". (source)

Two of the most well-known battles of the U.S. Civil War may have been fought due to trifles. The Battles of Gettysburg, because some soldiers required shoes and so their column was sent to that Pennsylvania village to acquire them, and Antietam, because a Confederate officer wrapped three cigars with a vital army order, and then carelessly dropped them, enabling the usually cautious General McClellan to attack Lee's divided army following the discovery of the order by a Union soldier. (source)

The Emancipation Proclamation freed very few slaves immediately. Issued by Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, the proclamation applied only to slaves in areas controlled by the rebel Confederate government, where Lincoln had no authority to enforce it. (source)

During the U.S. Civil War, the 8th Wisconsin regiment's mascot was an eagle, called Old Abe. Abe had been brought to the regiment by a soldier who had traded an Indian five bushels of corn in exchange for him. He followed his master around in the camp. During battles, Abe soared so high as to be almost lost to sight, and returned to the 8th Wisconsin after the shooting stopped. He was afraid of artillery fire. He was wounded once, but survived to live for 15 years in the Wisconsin State House. His body was preserved and is now in the Wisconsin State Museum. (source)

After the Battle of Gettysburg in the American Civil War on July 3, 1863, nearby trees began dying from lead poisoning due to the large number of bullets embedded in the wood.

During the U.S. Civil War, after the Union Army captured Norfolk and Portsmouth, Virginia, the Confederate Navy Yard was moved to Charlotte, North Carolina, which is over 200 miles from the ocean. For three years it produced cannon balls, iron masts, and various other supplies. (source)

The last American pirate to be hanged was Nathaniel Gordon, who was hanged in "the Tombs" in New York City on February 21, 1862. Previously, while captain of the ship Erie, his ship was captured by the American ship Mohican. An inspection revealed 967 blacks aboard who were to be sold into slavery. Conditions were so bad aboard that 300 died before they could be returned to Africa. Gordon was charged with piracy and found guilty. In addition to being the last American pirate to be hanged, he was the first, and only, American slave trader to be executed for being engaged in the slave trade. (source)

While over 4,000 were killed at the battle of Chickamauga, only one soldier is known to lie on the field of battle today. He is Private John Ingraham, of the First Confederate Regiment, Georgia Volunteers. He was an orphan who was buried by his comrades where he fell and remained there even though all other bodies were removed when the battlefield was made a park (source)

Despite Robert Todd Lincoln's resolution to stay away from the president, he is shown here (right) with President Warren Harding (centre) at the dedication of the Lincoln Memorial in 1922. Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and former president William Howard Taft is on the left.

Abraham Lincoln's oldest son, Robert Todd, was at the scene of three presidential assassinations. On April 14^th 1865, he rushed to Ford's Theater, where his father had been mortally wounded. In 1881 he was at President James Garfield's side just after he was shot. In 1901, he was about to join President McKinley at the Pan American Exhibit when he learned that McKinley had been shot. After that, Robert resolved to stay away from the president. (source)

Sergeant Henderson Virden of Pea Ridge, Arkansas enlisted in the Second Arkansas Regiment at the outbreak of the U.S. Civil War at the age of 25. He had had no word from his wife and children for a year when, in March 1862, he found himself marching across familiar country, and was soon fighting in his own farm in the battle of Pea Ridge, or Elkhorn Tavern. Virden was wounded and carried into his own house, where his wife tended him until he was able to return to his regiment. (source)

Out of the 620,000 or so who died during the American Civil War, only around 205,000 were killed in battle, while around 415,000 or so died of disease.

During the U.S. Civil War, Captain S. Isadore Guillet was fatally shot on the same horse on which three of his brothers had also been fatally killed. As he died, he willed the horse to a nephew. (source)

The Old Calton Burial Ground, in Edinburgh, Scotland, houses a memorial to Scottish soldiers who died in the American Civil War, as well as the first statue of Abraham Lincoln erected outside of the United States.

In one action of the U.S. Civil War, Private Juan Irva, a Mexican serving in the Confederate army, staged a one-man charge right into forty astonished Union troops, who were forced to flee. (source)

In a 1988 survey, only 32% of American teenagers were able to place the American Civil War in the second half of the 19th century. (source)

In 1863, slaves in Virginia could be hired for $30 a month. Meanwhile, the pay of a private in the Confederate Army private was $11 per month. Their pay rose to $18 per month in 1864. Union privates drew only $16, but the gold value of their pay was over seven times greater than that of Confederates. (source)

Lincoln's famous letter to Mrs. Bixby, who, according to the letter, was the mother of five sons killed in the American Civil War, may not have been written by Lincoln; John Hay, Lincoln's secretary, claimed to have written the letter, although it isn't known whether he meant that he composed it or just penned it. As well, five of Mrs. Bixby's sons didn't die in the Civil War. Two were killed, one des­erted, one was discharged, and one rebelled. (source)

Lieutenant John M. Ozanne, a French sharpshooter in the Confederate Army, became a hero to his fellow soldiers by resigning his commission in protest, stating that he was unable to buy food and clothing on his small pay. The resulting change in the law provided supplies for officers. (source)

One U.S. Civil War battle took place off the coast of France. On June 19, 1864, the sloops-of-war USS Kearsarge and CSS Alabama fought in neutral waters just off the town of Cherbourg in France. The Alabama was sunk after an hour's fight. (source)

During the U.S. Civil War, the Union Army had one company made up entirely of pugilists. Other companies were composed solely of musicians, farmers, or butchers. There was also a Temperance Company, and the 126th New York was the YMCA Regiment. Nicholas Busch, who would later be Lieutenant Governor of Iowa, formed a woodchoppers' corps of German immigrants who were unable to fight, and had them cut and haul wood for Mississippi River army steamers—pausing now and then to beat off guerrillas. (source)

In a span of 20 minutes during the Battle of Cold Harbor in the American Civil War, 7,000 Union troops were killed or wounded.

The fearsome Confederate ironclad ram Arkansas fought a duel with the Union gunboat Carondelet at the mouth of the Yazoo River in July, 1862. The Arkansas could not be damaged by shells, and the Carondelet, when shot through by cannon fire, drew alongside the Arkansas and sent a boarding party onto its decks. However, the crew of the Arkansas simply retired below decks and closed the iron hatches after them, leaving no-one to fight. A stalemate was the result. (source)

The U.S. state of Texas was under five different flags in the nineteenth century. At the start of the century it was under Spanish rule as a part of Mexico. Mexico achieved independence in 1821. From 1836 to 1845 Texas was an independent state under its own flag. From 1845 to 1860 Texas was part of the United States; in 1861 it briefly reverted back to its own flag before joining the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War, after which it rejoined the United States.

During the U.S. Civil War, the town of Winchester, Virginia, changed hands 76 times as armies surged to and fro in the Northern Shenandoah Valley. (source)

Burnside Bridge.

While Union General Ambrose Burnside had his share of successes during the American Civil War, he was also responsible for several spectacular failures. At the Battle of Antietam in 1862, he sent large numbers of men across a narrow bridge (now called Burnside Bridge), where they were easy targets for Confederate gunners, even though the river was only waist-deep and could be easily forded. At Fredericksburg a few months later, he ordered a suicidal charge that left 1,284 soldiers dead. At Petersburg in 1864, a tunnel was dug beneath the enemy trenches and filled with explosives that were then detonated, creating a large crater. Burnside then ordered troops into the crater, where they were trapped and picked off by Confederates. Abraham Lincoln remarked on the last incident, "Only Burnside could have managed such a coup, wringing one last spectacular defeat from the jaws of victory." (source)

There was an Abraham Lincoln on each side in the U.S. Civil War. On the Union Side was the President, annd on the Confederate side was Private Abraham Lincoln of Company F, 1^st Virginia Cavalry, from Jefferson County. He deserted to the North in 1864. (source)