One of the bloodiest battles was fought in Antietam, Maryland. Shortly after the Union army narrowly won that battle, Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, which ended slavery in the Confederacy but did not end slavery in the slave states that were in the Union.

Many people from the North and the South lost their lives as the war continued. The 54th Massachusetts Colored Regiment, an African American troop that fought for the Union Army, lost about 500 soldiers in a battle at Fort Wagner in Charleston. Women both in the North and South supported their troops by working in factories and hospitals. Clara Barton aided Union soldiers, and after the war founded the American Red Cross. In 1863, Ulysses S. Grant led Union troops to victory in Vicksburg, Mississippi.

In Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, Union troops led by General George Meade fought and won a major battle against the Confederacy. Over 28,000 Confederate soldiers were killed or wounded. The course of the war changed in favor of the North and led to Lincoln's famous Gettysburg Address.