American Civil War: The First Battle of Kernstown, Virginia, marks the start of Stonewall Jackson's Valley Campaign. Although a Confederate defeat, the engagement distracts Federal efforts to capture Richmond.

The American Civil War was a civil war in the United States between the Union and the Confederacy, which was formed in 1861 by states that had seceded from the Union to preserve slavery in the United States. The South saw slavery as threatened because of the election of Abraham Lincoln and the…