Civil War Centennial

The American Civil War Centennial was the official United States commemoration of the American Civil War, also known as the War Between the States. Commemoration activities began in 1957, four years prior to the 100th anniversary of the commencement of hostilities, and ended in 1965 with the 100th anniversary of the surrender at Appomattox.

The public commemoration of the Civil War commenced with the passage, by Congress in 1957, of a public act creating the United States Civil War Centennial Commission. The Commission was asked to work with, and encourage, the forty-eight U.S. states (especially the states that were in existence at the time of the Civil War) to create state-level commissions to commemorate the war, and to some extent coordinate centennial activities by the private sector.

The shadow of ongoing conflict over the Civil Rights Movement affected implementation of these commemorative activities. Neither Congress nor President Dwight D. Eisenhower were interested in a single, unified, national theme for the commemoration. To avoid this, the law creating the federal Commission reflected clear expectations that most of the implementation work of the commemoration would be carried out by the various state commissions. Almost all of the states did indeed set up centennial commissions.

At the same time, the National Park Service, and other federal agencies that controlled key Civil War battlefields, used the Centennial to successfully lobby Congress for increased funding to re-landscape and interpret these battlefields for the general public. The U.S. Post Office issued a series of commemorative stamps to mark the centennial.

At the national Commission, key members urged different priorities. Emory University Professor Bell Wiley recommended a major effort to document and preserving information from historic letters, newspapers and public documents. Ulysses S. Grant III, the first chairman, wanted to emphasize large-scale events that appealed to the public, such as "sham battles" or reenactments. Businessman Karl Betts, the first executive director of the Commission, looked for ways it could spur economic development. They agreed on a Cold War consensus to the effect that all Americans were ideologically united, with the result that potentially divisive civil rights issues were not emphasized.

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