The U.S. Civil War (1861-1865) and the period of Reconstruction (1865-1877) that followed transformed the United States. The bloodiest war in American history, the Civil War led to the deaths of more than 600,000 people and touched countless lives. Union victory also resulted in the abolition of slavery and the liberation of more than four million enslaved African Americans from bondage. The war’s consequences reverberated internationally, reshaping diplomatic and trade relations and prompting important new conversations about human rights. During the tumultuous Reconstruction era, the nation sought to reunite its fractured populace and rebuild its political framework and economy. African Americans fought hard to gain new rights, acquiring citizenship and the franchise for men through the ratification of the Reconstruction Amendments in the face of political resistance and white supremacist violence. Our course will examine the Civil War and Reconstruction in national and global perspective, focusing on the connections and disconnections that proceeded from wartime. We will study closely the war’s human impact, looking at how mobilization, battle, emancipation, and the fight for civil rights shaped the lives of soldiers, women on the home front, enslaved African Americans, and freed people. Our readings include scholarly monographs and articles as well as primary sources that illuminate the experience of war through diary entries, correspondence, and petitions. We will also evaluate visual materials including photographs and artistic representations in periodicals, lithographs, paintings, and advertisements. Course assignments include quizzes, a midterm paper, and a final essay.