President Lincoln's election angered the southern states and seven of them announced they would leave the U.S. and form their own goverment. In 1861, South Carolina troops fired artillery at Fort Sumter, a U.S. military fort. This began the Civil War. The war would be the central feature of Lincoln's presidency
Lincoln's goal through the war was to reunite the north, Known as the Union, with the south, known as the confederacy