Four years of conflict were marked by historical battles at Bull Run (Manassas), Antietam, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg and Vicksburg, etc. The first real battle took place July 21, 1861, on the hills around Bull Run creek outside Manassas, Virginia, a railroad junction some 30 miles south of the Northern capital at Washington City (Washington, D.C.) There were many causes which led to the Civil War, many around the fact that the North was becoming more industrialized, along with more that include the Missouri Compromise, slavery in america, the underground railroad and much more. Abraham Lincoln was one of the many of the important people that took part of the civil war along with Ulysses S. Grant, Robert E. Lee, and the other heroes of the Civil War including citizens and soldiers. Women, in this time period, played the roles of authors such as in the case of Harriet Beecher Stowe, abolitionists, civil rights activists, and nurses. There were about 365,000 dead and 275,200 wounded. The two main armies involved in the Civil War were the Union Army and the Confederate Army, but there were other notable armies within them including the Army of The Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia. The Union Army, also known as the Federal Army, was the army that fought for the north during the civil war even though it was really a several armies to cover the many geographical regions in which the war was fought. The Confederate Army was the army of the Confederate States of America. shortly after the election of Abraham Lincoln, the southern states began to separate from the union. Confederate President Jefferson Davis took charge of the Army after the attack on Fort Sumter (began the civil war). At the end, after four years of fighting, in 1865 the Union Army was victorious over the Confederate Army thus ended the Civil War.