The Civil War was a messy and brutal conflict for the United States, with slavery being a major factor in the battle. At the beginning 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 Confederate territories, they did not actually experience freedom until the end of the war. Lincoln strove to abolish slavery, but it appears that he did not fully think about what would happen to these slaves after the war ended. In 1865 the Union created the Bureau of Refugees, Freemen and Deserted Lands to help the men and women after the war. This became recognized as the Freedmen's Bureau and was used to help slaves transition to freedom. Unfortunately, not all of his goals were achieved. Abraham Lincoln's resistance to the expansion of slavery in the West created a long period of conflict that led to the Civil War. After Lincoln won the 1860 election, official conflict soon began. 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 had begun. At the end of the Civil War, four more states would join the Confederacy, and more than six hundred thousand men would die on both sides. At the beginning of the war approximately four million slaves occupied the United States. Most of these slaves worked on Confederate farms. Depending on the masters, slaves were treated differently. The lucky ones with...... middle of the sheet......11, 1866. The Valley of the 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 North Carolina 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 Destructiveness 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.