The Civil War is one of the most influential events in the entire history of the United States. This essay will detail some of the reasons for this, including the fundamental change in the entire lifestyle of many people, the complete change in the political landscape of the country, and finally, this war was truly the first "modern war" using different tactics still in use. Today. The most obvious effect of the civil war is the radical change in the lifestyle of many people (at least temporarily). The Civil War, as many know, was fought primarily to reunite the Union and to free the United States from slavery. Of course, once the war was won, the Union reunited and the North forced the South to give up slavery. This profoundly shook Southern society, forcing a huge change in how they operated. For example, this led many large plantations, which could not rely on cheap labor all their lives, to close down or change crops to something much easier to plant and harvest, so that they could reduce the number of hired workers, who now actually had to be paid. I...