The American Civil War

[SimuLord]

So, I love history, and I especially like to study war, and recently I downloaded the Blue and the Grey mod for Empire Total War. I decided to read up on this civil war, because I had already seen a couple of films (Gods and Generals, and Gettysburg) previously, and yesterday I read this article on Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War

How accurate is this article? I was under the impression from other sources that slavery hadn't been abolished in the North until about mid-way through the war, as part of a recruitment drive. Is that untrue? Also, I thought that the Confederates wanted the British to rule the American Colonies again, in conjunction with the would-be newly-established Confederate government. Is this also bollocks?

It's difficult getting an unbiased view of history, because the victors write the history books, and all sources (from either side) seems to have an agenda! Anyway, tell me what you were taught in school, and please tell me if I'm wrong, because I really wanna find out exactly what happened (as in the causes of, and politics of, the US civil war).

If you can find it, Ken Burns' documentary "The Civil War" is the definitive source on the subject (and a truly riveting watch). I'd also recommend anything by Shelby Foote, since he writes from the perspective of the Confederacy.

Wikipedia? Yeah, not so much, in part because so many of the editors have the dreadful public-school version of the history between 1861-65 that is ladled out to be "yay Union" (if, like me, you went to school in the Northeast), "damn those Yankee bastards" (if, like my friend Gay Mike, you went to school in Georgia), or whatever they teach in the neutral West. Whatever it is, history it ain't.

The ACW and the whole leadup to it (and you really do have to go all the way back to the Founding Fathers to understand how it all came together---knowing Eli Whitney's contributions on both sides helps as well) is a fascinating chapter not just of American but of human history.

(but I'm biased---huge history buff.)