[Pining_4_TX]

The US has not had a civil war. A civil war consists of factions fighting for control of the central government. It is not the same thing as groups or states wishing to split from the the rest of the country. Whatever you want to call it - the war between the states or the war of northern aggression- it was NOT a civil war.

[MrB]

Yes, yes, that’s true.

1st war for independence, 1776, Win
2nd war for independence, 1861, Loss

Tie breaker?

[justice14]

civil war  noun a war between political factions or regions within the same country.

[SkyDancer]

The South started first. Cadets from the local academy fired on a US warship trying to supply Ft. Sumter - the ship being at the time still in the Union. The second incident was the firing on Ft. Sumter a few months later.

The Southern Confederacy next invaded Manassas (21 July 1861) forty miles west of Washington. (1st. battle of Bull Run) - therefore the South was the agressor in that it invaded the North,it became a war between the states; The Union vs The Confederacy who wanted to secede from the Union.

So I suggest you call the war the proper name "The War Of Secession". Or maybe to reverse the South's name - the Union called it "The War Of Southern Rebellion" or in your term "The war Of Southern Agression".

[Tublecane]

All the term “civil war” means is a war between citizens of the same country, as opposed to a foreign war which is between members of two or more countries. Now, you can take the South’s position that it ceased to be a part of the US once it said so, and therefore it was a foreign country. But by no means does the term imply the South was fighting for control of the US federal government. The American Revolutionary War, for instance, was a civil war in which the sides were fighting for the independence or dependence of the American colonies from the British empire.