What were the results of the Civil War?

The Civil War resulted in the end of slavery, which freed some four million African-Americans. This event ranks as the single largest emancipation of slaves in the history of the Western hemisphere.

The war was extraordinarily bloody. Roughly 360,000 Union troops died and another 275,000 were wounded a casualty rate of approximately 30 percent. Some 260,000 Confederate soldiers were killed and at least 100,000 were wounded, out of an army totaling 800,000. The war was also extremely destructive for the Southern states, whose economies would not fully recover for decades.

In some sense, the Civil War was the central event in American history, because it settled the long-standing conflicts over slavery and over the relationship between states and the national government. In its aftermath, Americans confronted the difficult task of reconstructing their nation and enabling four million African-Americans to make the transition from slavery to freedom.