What’s a “civil war”? I searched using Google on civil war definition. The first heading read “a war between citizens of the same country.” There was a war. That’s for sure. The war began on April 12, 1861. Seven states had seceded before the war began (South Carolina December 20, 1860, Mississippi January 9, 1861, Florida January 10, 1861, Alabama January 11, 1861, Georgia January 19, 1861, Louisiana January 26, 1861, Texas February 1, 1861.) Were their citizens in the “same country” as the other states? That’s what the war was about. Secession as a political act to form a new political entity doesn’t automatically create that entity as a separate country. Most often, secession is contested by the mother country. Force usually or very often decides the issue. In 1861, we would not know whether or not the citizens of the seceding states were in the same country until after the war had been fought and the issue decided by force of arms. Now we know. The victory of the North determined that the seceding states were in the same country. While the war was being waged, southerners may have thought they were in a different country but within a few years they found that they were not. After the war was over, it could be termed a civil war because the North made it such by making the southerners remain as citizens of the U.S.A.
As a footnote, 4 states didn’t secede until after the war began, so that for a short period they were surely involved in a civil war. In addition, 4 states in the war never seceded: Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland and Delaware. They were surely involved in civil warfare.
The fact that the Civil War was a civil war doesn’t preclude other possible names for the war or descriptions of it. There is no claim that such names are mutually exclusive or that calling the war the Civil War rules out calling it by another name.
7:43 am on April 25, 2016
