The Union victory in the Civil War in 1865 may have given some 4 million slaves their freedom, but the process of rebuilding the South during the Reconstruction Era (1865-1877) introduced a new set of significant challenges.

From August 1864 to the end of the Civil War in May 1865, Thomas Morris Chester provided readers of the Philadelphia Press with first-hand experiences of black soldiers on the Virginia front.

John Tyler was the only U.S. President to serve the Confederacy during the Civil War. After failing in his bid to lead a compromise movement after the first southern states seceded in 1861, the former U.S. President helped to create the Southern Confederacy. He died in 1862, a member of the Confederate House of Representatives.

U.S. President Abraham Lincoln spoke these words when, after a disastrous defeat at the Battle of Fredericksburg, Democrats in Congress tried to force him to back down from his Emancipation Proclamation. Despite his discouragement, however, Lincoln stood his ground.

African Americans constituted less than 1 percent of the northern population, yet by the war's end made up 10 percent of the Union army.

Belle Boyd's spying career began when she reportedly shot and killed a Union soldier who insulted her. Belle was acquitted and soon became a local celebrity in her hometown of Winchester, attracting the attention of Generals Beauregard and Jackson, for whom she acted as courier and spy.

Many historians attribute the Confederacy's weaknesses to the poor leadership of President Davis. His diplomatic efforts failed to gain recognition from any foreign country, and at home, the collapsing Confederate economy forced his government to print more and more paper money to cover the war's expenses, leading to runaway inflation and devaluation of the Confederate dollar.

Galusha Pennypacker is to this day the youngest person to hold the rank of brigadier general in the U.S. Army. At the age of 20, he remains the only general too young to vote for the president who appointed him.

Considered by Confederate President Jefferson Davis to be the finest general officer in the Confederacy before the emergence of Robert E. Lee, Albert Sidney Johnston was killed early in the Civil War at the Battle of Shiloh. Johnston was the highest-ranking officer, Union or Confederate, killed during the entire war. Davis believed the loss of Johnston "was the turning point of our fate".

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., a future justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, was wounded three times during the Civil War: 1) in the chest at Ball's Bluff, 2) in the back at Antietam, and 3) in the heel at Chancellorsville.