Short answers, pulled from the story.
The American Civil War began on the 12th of April 1861, when Confederate forces bombarded Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina. It ended on the 26th of May 1865, following Robert E. Lee's surrender to Ulysses S. Grant on the 9th of April 1865 at Appomattox Court House.
The primary cause of the Civil War was the Southern states' determination to preserve the institution of slavery. Seven slave states seceded from the Union after Abraham Lincoln, who opposed slavery's expansion, won the 1860 presidential election. Secession documents from South Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia, and Texas explicitly cited the movement to abolish slavery as their reason for leaving.
An estimated 700,000 soldiers died in the American Civil War, along with an undetermined number of civilian deaths, making it the deadliest war in American history. Approximately 56,000 of the 409,000 prisoners of war also died in captivity, accounting for about 10 percent of the conflict's total fatalities.
The Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order issued by Abraham Lincoln on the 1st of January 1863, declaring all enslaved people in rebel states to be free. It applied to more than 3.5 million of the approximately 4 million enslaved people in the country and made abolition a formal Union war goal.
Between 500 and 1,000 women enlisted as soldiers on both sides, disguised as men, according to historian Elizabeth D. Leonard. Women also served as spies, nurses, and hospital personnel on ships like the Union hospital ship Red Rover. Mary Edwards Walker, the only woman ever to receive the Medal of Honor, served in the Union Army treating the wounded.
The Battle of Gettysburg was a three-day engagement fought from July 1 to 3, 1863, in which Union General George Meade defeated Confederate General Robert E. Lee's second invasion of the North. It caused over 50,000 Union and Confederate casualties and is considered the war's turning point. Pickett's Charge on July 3, the battle's final day, is regarded as the high-water mark of the Confederacy.