The Civil War changed the way that many of the people in this country view race. The war also vastly affected the government and the unity of the United States. This would ultimately be the largest and most expensive, monetary wise and mortality wise, war that the United States had ever seen. The United States would be changed forever because of this new war of age old issues. The greatest underlying cause of this great war was slavery. Slavery was the economic back bone of the southern United States and it influenced the way that the south stood on many politics of the country. The South was not willing to give up slavery, because to them, giving up slavery meant giving up their way of life and their steady income. The Northern United States however, even though still extremely racist, was against slavery and at first believed that the African slaves should be sent back to Africa. This idea later was changed and they just believed that the slaves should be freed. The North became the haven for the slaves and the slaves would escape and run as fast as they could to get to the freedom that they desired. This search for freedom caused many disputes between the Northern and …show more content…
It provided no true winner because of the poor strategies applied by both generals and then once the fighting was over, Abraham Lincoln claimed the battle as a Union victory and used photographs taken of the carnage of the battle to support this claim. This claim of victory for the Union allowed Lincoln to lay groundwork for the Emancipation Proclamation because of the awful number of casualties from that one battle. The Emancipation Proclamation was a proclamation by President Abraham Lincoln that stated that all slaves in the Confederate states were free starting on January 1, 1863. Even though this did not free a single slave, it changed the war from being about the integrity of the Union to a fight for human