From the start of the war in April 1861, with the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter, until General Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox four years later, over 620,000 people were killed ...

Federal troops returned the fire. The Civil War had begun. Immediately following the attack, four more states -- Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee -- severed their ties with the Union.

The Civil War was the bloodiest and most destructive conflict in American history. From the beginning of the war in April 1861 to the end in April 1865, over 620,000 people were killed, about ...