lllSlavery Ida Bell Wells was born in Holly Springs, Mississippi, during the second year of the Civil War, the internal American conflict that killed many people over various issues that the North and South did not agree on. At this time Mississippi was considered to be part of the Confederate States of America , one of the eleven states that had formed together after resigning from the United States.

The Civil War begins at Fort Sumter, Source: Microsoft Encarta CD-ROM, 1999.

Slavery The American Civil War, between the Union and the Confederate States of America, began on April 12, 1861 when General P.T. Beauregard opened fire on Fort Sumter in South Carolina and ended with the surrender of the Confederates on May 26, 1865. The war was mainly due to a conflict over slavery. The South which relied on slavery for its economy wanted slavery to be allowed in the western states newly acquired in the Mexican Cession, but the North where slavery was illegal, did not want this. At this point, the North and South were two different worlds, which added to the tensions between the regions.
avery The battles were bloody and tiring, each new year bringing opposite sides false hope for the future. Each battle shattered this hope. Bold military steps
and strategies were used- the boldest being the Emancipation Proclamation by Abraham Lincoln. This lessened British sympathy for the South because the war was now a war of freedom, which Britain supported greatly. It also enabled blacks to fight on the Union's side, which they bravely did. The Company E., 4th U.S. Colored Infantry was one of these infantries. They fought in all black companies on 3 different engagements. Twenty-three black men in such infantries as these received the highest honor available in the military, the Medal of
Honor for Bravery.

avery During the War, Ida's hometown, Holly Springs was a beneficial location for the military of the North and the South. During a short period Ulysses Grant, a northern general later to become the eighteenth president of the United States, used the town as his headquarters.
avery The final year of the war brought tension and horror. On April 14, Lincoln was shot and died the next day. On account of this, the Union began a succession of attacks that weakened the already fragile Confederacy. The war ended in the
spring of 1865. Slaver

Slavery The Emancipation Proclamation, issued by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863, declared the independence of slaves, but the freedom of slaves wasn't truly assured until the North won the War in 1865. After the war, much of the the South was left in a state of economic and social devastation as Southerners had to restore the plantations and other places that had been destroyed. The greatest change for white southerners was having to do their tasks without the labor of slaves. Former slaves now had a new life to pursue with their new freedoms in the upcoming period known as Reconstruction. However, many whites in the South did not want blacks to become equal to them, so laws known as Jim Crow Laws were passed to keep blacks denied of their rights and just treatment.