The Civil War was a messy and brutal conflict for the United States, with slavery being the primary factor in the battle. At the start of the war, there were approximately four million slaves in the Union. With the help of Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, these Union slaves were declared free from slavery. However, because many of these slaves lived in the Confederacy's territories, they did not truly experience freedom until the end of the war. Lincoln tried very hard to abolish slavery, but it appears that he did not fully consider what would happen to these slaves after the war ended. In 1865, the Union established the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands to assist men and women after the war. This became known as the Freedmen's Bureau and was used to help slaves transition to freedom. Unfortunately, not all of its objectives were achieved. Abraham Lincoln's resistance to expanding slavery in the West created a long period of conflict that led to the Civil War. After Lincoln won the 1860 election, formal conflict would soon begin. Before President Lincoln could even deliver his inaugural address, seven southern states declared their independence from the Union, and on March 4, 1861, the Confederate States of America was formed. When the Confederate army fired on Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, the American Civil War was beginning. By the end of the Civil War, four additional states would join the Confederacy and more than six hundred thousand men would die on each side. At the start of the war, approximately four million slaves occupied the United States. Most of these slaves worked on Confederacy farms. Depending on the masters, slaves were treated differently. The luckiest with...... middle of paper ......11, 1866. The Valley of Shadow. http://valley.lib.virginia.edu/papers/B0553 (accessed April 17, 2014). McPherson, James M. Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. Morris, Thomas D. Southern Slavery and the Law, 1619-1860. Chapel Hill: University of NorthCarolina Press, 1996. Nichols, Roy F. The Disruption of American Democracy. New York: Macmillan Co, 1948. “Palm Sunday,” Harpers Weekly. April 22, 1865. Parker, Marjorie H. 1954. “Some Educational Activities of the Freedmen's Bureau.” The Journal of Negro Education. 23:1 (winter 1954): 9-21. Paskoff, Paul F. “War Measures: A Quantitative Examination of the Destructive Character of Civil War in the Confederacy.” » Civil War History 54:1 (March 2008): 35-62. Randall, J.G. and David Herbert Donald. The Civil War and Reconstruction. Boston: Heath,1961.