At home, families and friends were on opposite sides of the war.  Southern troops were young and poorly equipped.  Much of the war took place in the South.  Large cities like Atlanta and Richmond were destroyed and devastated with disease.  Battle was often man-to-man.  Women were left to run businesses and farms throughout the country.  The collapse of the Confederacy, made Confederate money worthless.

Clara Barton
Clara Barton known as the "Angel of the Battlefields" was a famous Civil War nurse to wounded Union troops.  She was the founder of the American Red Cross in1881. After the war, she opened the Missing Soldier Office.  The government gave her $15,000 in federal money and her own staff.  As soon as the word spread, Clara got many letters looking for lost men and boys.  She made contacts with the families herself.  Soon after, she went to Andersonville, Georgia where almost 80,000 soldiers were prisoners of the war.  When she closed the office in 1868, she was able to find information on more than 22,000 soldiers.

African Americans fought in both armies.  The Confederacy used slaves as naval crew members and soldiers and the Union enlisted them early in the war.  African soldiers did not have equal pay and were discriminated against while serving in segregated units.  Robert Smalls, a sailor and later a Union naval captain was highly honored and went on to become a Congressman after the war ended..