Eastern theater of the American Civil War
The eastern theater of the American Civil War consisted of the major military and naval operations in the states of Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, the District of Columbia, and the coastal fortifications and seaports of North Carolina.
President Lincoln visiting the Army of the Potomac at the Antietam battlefield, September 1862. Photo by Alexander Gardner.
Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, USA
Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan, USA
Maj. Gen. Irvin McDowell, USA
The American Civil War was a civil war in the United States between the Union and the Confederacy, which had been formed by states that had seceded from the Union.
Frederick Douglass, a former slave, was a leading abolitionist
Sen. Stephen A. Douglas, author of the Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854
Sen. John J. Crittenden, of the 1860 Crittenden Compromise
Ambrotype of two unidentified young boys, one in blue Union cap, one in gray Confederate cap (Liljenquist collection, Library of Congress)