The American Civil War, also known as the War Between the States, the War of the Rebellion, or the War for Southern Independence, began on April 12, 1861 The first shot rang out in the air at Fort Sumter, in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. General PGT Beauregard of the Congregation leads the attack on Charleston Harbor. The Civil War lasted until the last Confederate army surrendered, with over 600,000 lives destroyed, $5 billion in property damage, and 4 million black salves released. The war devastated many lives but also marked the beginning of a new beginning. The cause of this brutal war between a nation; slavery. The Southern states, including the 11 states that formed the Confederacy, all relied on slavery to support their economies, while we, the Northern states, were opposed to it. Southern states used slave labor to produce crops, including cotton. Slavery here was forbidden, although few of us opposed it. After we had just defeated Mexico in the Mexican War (1846-1848), the main debate on the eve of the war was whether or not we should allow slavery in the won states. in the Mexican War. These states included New Mexico, part of California, and Utah. The government tried to make this conflict fair by equalizing the number of non-slave states and slave states, so that there would be no majority in the Senate. Opponents of slavery feared that state expansion would outweigh Mexico because they did not want to compete with slave labor. At the start of the war, the Union had 19 non-slave states and the Confederacy had 15 slave states. President Lincoln called the nation "a house divided »..