A History of the Civil War, 1861-1865 is a book by James Ford Rhodes. It won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1918. The book is about the American Civil War. The civil war was fought between northern states loyal to the Union and southern states that had seceded to form the Confederate States of America. The civil war began as a result of the unresolved controversy of the enslavement of black people and its disputed continuance. War broke out in April 1861 when secessionist forces attacked Fort Sumter in South Carolina, just over a month after Abraham Lincoln had been inaugurated as the president of the United States.