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The American Civil War was the largest
military conflict in the Western world

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between the Napoleonic Wars and World
War I. It cost 600,000 American lives,

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more than the US casualties in World
War I and World War II combined.

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Its social consequences were
especially far-reaching.

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After futile pleas to the border
states to free slaves voluntarily, The

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Emancipation Proclamation transformed the
war from a conflict to save the Union

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to a war to abolish slavery. It resulted
in the emancipation of four million

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enslaved African Americans.

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It also brought vast changes to the
nation's financial system, fundamentally

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altered the relationship between the
states and the federal government, and

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became modern history's first total war.
It is truly the central event in

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American history.