Millions of people contributed and sacrificed tremendously to the outcome of the American Civil War. Hundreds of thousands of Americans sacrificed everything. Yet one man stands out in history and is credited above all others in influencing the outcome of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln.

Abraham Lincoln, a former Illinois lawyer, won the Republican Party nomination and became the President of the United States in 1860. The southern states, of which Lincoln only won 2 of 996 counties that he was on the ballot on, began quickly seceding from the Union and forming their own nation, the Confederate States of America. Abraham Lincoln and the majority in the north would not allow the Union to be dissolved, and an American Civil War was imminent.

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