Prior to the Civil War, embalming was performed mainly to preserve the body for the purpose of medical studies; however, there were no specific guidelines for the embalmer. It was performed by those with a medical background and usually involved the use of toxic chemicals. The only other two means of preservation included ice (in the form of a refrigerated coffin that housed an ice chamber on top and a drainage system below), and encasing the body in an air-tight receptacle—both could delay composition for an extended period of time.

Shortly after the American Civil War broke out in 1861, the Confederacy quickly began developing an ironclad based on the hull of the USS Merrimack which had been burned by Federal troops before the naval base at Norfolk - Gosport Navy Yard - had been captured by the recently seceded Commonwealth of Virginia. The United States Congress addressed this issue in August 1861 and recommend that armored ships be built for the Union Navy. Ericsson still had a dislike of the U.S. Navy but he was convinced by Cornelius Scranton Bushnell to work on an ironclad for them. Ericsson presented drawings of the USS Monitor a totally unique and novel design of armoured ship, which after much controversy was eventually built and finished on March 6, 1862. The ship went from plans to launch in approximately 100 days, an amazing achievement.

The infantry in the American Civil War' comprised foot-soldiers who fought primarily with small arms, and they carried the brunt of the fighting on battlefields across the country. As the Civil War progressed, battlefield tactics soon changed in response to the new form of warfare being waged in America. The use of military balloons, rifled muskets, repeating rifles, and fortified entrenchments contributed to the death of many men. Officers, many professionally trained in tactics from the Napoleonic Wars, were often slow to develop changes in tactics in response.

As a private citizen Parrott was able to experiment with cannons and projectiles without the usual red tape involved in government foundries. His accomplishments during his tenure included the perfection of a rifled cannon and its corresponding projectile (both named after him) patented in 1861, and the Parrott sight and fuze which were developed during the Civil War years.

On a Virginia hillside rising above the Potomac River and overlooking Washington, D.C., stands Arlington House. The 19th-century mansion seems out of place amid the more than 250,000 military grave sites that stretch out around it. Yet, when construction began in 1802, the estate was not intended to be a national cemetery.

Approximately 180,000 African Americans comprising 163 units served in the Union Army during the Civil War, and many more African Americans served in the Union Navy. Both free African-Americans and runaway slaves joined the fight.

The General Grant National Memorial (as designated by the U.S. National Park Service), better known as Grant's Tomb, is a mausoleum containing the bodies of Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885), an American Civil War General and the 18th President of the United States, and his wife, Julia Dent Grant (1826–1902).

"Black Dispatches" was a common term used among Union military men for intelligence on Confederate forces provided by Negroes. This source of information represented the single most prolific and productive category of intelligence obtained and acted on by Union forces throughout the Civil War.

In 1860 there were nearly 32 million Americans. Of that number 4.4 million were African Americans. Among the white population 1/6 were foreign born. The highest number of those were from Northwestern Europe where nearly 2 and a half million immigrants had come . Those from Northwest Europe included 1 and a half million Irish and 400,000 individuals from England, with another 100,000 from Scotland and 100,000 from France. From Central and Eastern Europe there were 1.3 million immigrants nearly all of whom were from Germany. The rest of the immigrant population consisted of 35,000 Chinese, 249,000 Canadians and 27,000 Mexicans, with a smattering of people from the far corners of the globe.

The assassination of Abraham Lincoln, one of the last major events in the American Civil War, took place on Friday, April 14, 1865, at approximately 10:00 P.M. President Abraham Lincoln was shot while attending a performance of Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre with his wife and two guests. Lincoln died the following day—April 15,1865—at 7:22 A.M., in the home of William Petersen.