Abraham Lincoln was President of the United States during the Civil War from 1860 to 1865. As president, he was also the Commander-in-Chief of the Union Army, which is the highest-ranking military officer. In 1863, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared that all slaves in the Confederate States would be free. This helped end slavery in the United States. The same year, he gave a famous speech called the Gettysburg Address at a cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. He wanted to honor all the soldiers who had lost their lives in the war.Many people thought he was a great president, though some people did not like his views on slavery. President Lincoln was assassinated on April 14, 1865, by John Wilkes Booth at a theater in Washington, DC, only five days after the South surrendered to end the Civil War.

 

Jefferson Davis was the President of the Confederate States of America and Commander-in-Chief of the Confederate Army. No stranger to war or politics, he had been a colonel in the United States Army during the Mexican-American War, as well as Secretary of War and a United States Senator.

Jefferson Davis was born in the South and grew up on a cotton plantation. At age 16, he went to the Military Academy at West Point. The training he received at the military school helped him become a great military leader, and it is one of the reasons the Confederates won so many battles at the beginning of the Civil War.

 

Ulysses S. Grant was the leader of the Union Army. As a general, Grant fought hard and was very stubborn in battles. He did not like to be defeated.

Grant was trained at the Military Academy at West Point. During the Mexican-American War, he was a second lieutenant in the army. When the North began losing so many battles in the Civil War, Grant joined the army for a second time. He was an excellent military leader because of his training and skill. General Grant went on to become president of the United States twice. People remember him as a great war hero, with most believing he did more as a leader of the army than he did as president.

 

Robert E. Lee was the South’s greatest general during the Civil War. He graduated from West Point Military Academy and became a colonel in the army before the Civil War began. He was from Virginia, and although President Lincoln asked him to command the Union Army, General Lee chose to fight for his home and join the Confederate cause.

General Lee was a fierce fighter and helped his soldiers win many battles at the beginning of the Civil War. But the Union Army was bigger and stronger. Lee felt he had to surrender to the North to stop so many of his soldiers from being killed, and he did so in April of 1865.

 

 

(Adapted from source)