Title: Freedom: A History of US. Webisode 6: A War to End Slavery | PBS
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Content: A war to end slavery, a war to defend states' rights, or a war to preserve the Union: for what purpose did Americans fight and over six hundred thousand die between 1861 and 1865? After decades of sectional strife over the extension of the South's peculiar institution into new territory, the nation exploded into civil war. In April 1861, South Carolina troops fired on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, and Lincoln called for volunteers for the Union army. Eleven Southern states seceded from the Union. The Union debacle at the battle of Bull Run (Manassas) awakened Americans to the ugly realization that the war would be neither short nor bloodless. The Confederacy boasted excellent generals, such as Lee and Jackson, but it lacked the industrial resources and men to sustain a prolonged struggle. Lincoln could not find generals of equal caliber until Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan rose to high command. The Union, however, had the resources and population to endure and ultimately prevail. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, issued in 1863 after the costly Union victory at Antietam, freed all enslaved persons within the Confederacy.