Civil War
No war has affected the political nature and history of America more than the Civil War. During a period of grave internal strife over the issue of slavery, when it seemed that the nation would dissolve into weak and defenseless units, the four-year Civil War (April 12, 1861, to April 8, 1865) unified the country and created conditions leading to the emancipation of the slaves.
"Morning came at last and a sad morning it was. The flags that floated so gaily yesterday now were draped in black, and hung in silent folds at half-mast. The President was dead, and a nation was mourning for him. Every house was draped in black, and every face wore a solemn look. People spoke in subdued tones, and glided whisperingly, wonderingly, silently about the streets."
"…Barely had blacks begun to enjoy freedom when they were stunned by the death of President Abraham Lincoln. At Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C., at 10 p.m., April 14, he was shot by John Wilkes Booth, a rebel sympathizer. Lincoln died at 7:30 a.m. the following day.
Thousands of blacks were among the more than one million Americans who either attended the president’s wake or viewed his funeral train as it carried his body from Washington to Springfield, Illinois. Elizabeth Keckly, Mrs. Lincoln’s personal confidante, was one of the blacks who saw the president’s body and wrote a moving account of her experience:
​ Morning came at last and a sad morning it was. The flags that floated so gaily yesterday now were draped in black, and hung in silent folds at half-mast. The President was dead, and a nation was mourning for him. Every house was draped in black, and every face wore a solemn look. People spoke in subdued tones, and glided whisperingly, wonderingly, silently about the streets.​​​​​
The death of Lincoln was a loss, but blacks and liberal whites rallied to continue the fight for freedom. Thus in victory and tragedy, personal and collective, blacks and liberal whites rededicated themselves to the fight for freedom, a fight that persists to this very day and involves the same circumstances, though the names and dates have changed."