General Robert E. Lee, commander of the Confederate forces, traveled with a pet chicken during the U.S. Civil War. Lee's chicken (a hen) reportedly laid one egg under his cot every morning, thus providing the general's breakfast.

A determined opponent of the spread of slavery in the years leading up to the American Civil War, William H. Seward was a dominant figure in the Republican Party in its formative years, and was generally praised for his work on behalf of the Union as Secretary of State during the American Civil War.

Confederate general Richard S. Ewell was wounded on May 23, 1863 at the Second Battle of Manassas but returned to duty with a wooden leg. On July 3, he was wounded again at the Battle of Gettysburg. When one of his men asked if he was okay, he replied that it "don't hurt a bit to be shot in a wooden leg."

Winfield Scott Hancock served with distinction in the Army for four decades, including service in the Mexican-American War and as a Union general in the American Civil War. Known to his Army colleagues as "Hancock the Superb", he was noted in particular for his personal leadership at the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863. When the Democrats nominated him for President in 1880, he ran a strong campaign, but was narrowly defeated by Republican James A. Garfield.

Robert Smalls freed himself, his crew and their families from slavery on May 13, 1862, by commandeering a Confederate transport ship, the CSS Planter, in Charleston harbor, and sailing it from Confederate-controlled waters to the U.S. blockade.

In April 1865, Pemberton sustained a saber wound to the chest during the Battle of Columbus. He soon became addicted to the morphine used to ease his pain. Seeking a cure for his addiction, he began to experiment with painkillers that would serve as opium-free alternatives to morphine. His first recipe was Dr. Tuggle's Compound Syrup of Globe Flower, but his most famous was Coca-Cola.

Private John J. Williams of the 34th Indiana became the last man killed in the Civil War on May 13, 1865, a month after Lee's surrender at Appomattox. Williams was injured in a meaningless battle at Palmito Ranch, Texas. This final skirmish was a Confederate victory.

Senator John J. Crittendon of Kentucky had two sons who became major generals during the Civil War--one for the North and one for the South.

Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth on Good Friday, April 14, 1865, while attending the play Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre as the American Civil War was drawing to a close.

Although a Southerner himself, Mark Twain reviled the chauvinist attitudes held by many Southerners. In Life on the Mississippi, he wrote, "Sir Walter had so large a hand in making Southern character, as it existed before the war, that he is in great measure responsible for the war."