The Civil war started when Abraham Lincoln was elected president. Lincoln was a Republican with anti-slavery views and most states in the south didn’t like that so seven of those states formed the Confederate States of America and when the civil war began in 1861 four more joined the Confederates. At first the war was just about preserving the United States as a nation the anti-sentiment didn’t come until later in the war. Five days after the Union won the battle at Antietam in September 1862, Lincoln issued a preliminary emancipation proclamation and on January 1st 1863 he made it official that “slaves within any State, or designated part of a State…in rebellion,…shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.” (http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/slavery). By doing that he freed about 3 million slaves, public opinion went on the union side, deprived the Confederacy of its labour forces and about 186.000 blacks joined the Union military and by the time war ended 38.000 of those soldiers lost their lives making the total number of dead 620.000 out of a population of 35 million making it the costliest war on American soil.