United States
Officially, its name is the United States of America. But people often call it the United States, the USA, or America.
The United States is a vast and beautiful land. It’s home to rich farmland, towering mountains, huge stands of timber, mighty rivers, and valuable mineral deposits.
Colonists from Europe founded the United States more than 200 years ago. They created a new kind of society based on the ideals of freedom and opportunity. The American people, through their ambitiousness and hard work, built one of the world’s richest and most powerful nations.
Facts About the United States
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Official name
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United States of America
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Capital
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Washington, D.C.
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Population
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304,000,000 people
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Rank among countries in population
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3rd
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Major cities
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New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia
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Area
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3,790,000 square miles
9,830,000 square kilometers |
Rank among countries in area
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3rd
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Highest point
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Mt. McKinley
20,320 feet/6,194 meters |
Currency
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United States dollar
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FROM SEA TO SHINING SEA
The United States is the third largest country in area in the world, after Russia and Canada. It covers the width of North America between Canada and Mexico. That gives the United States long coastlines facing both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
A broad coastal plain lines the East Coast of the United States. To the west, the land climbs to the rugged Appalachian Mountains. The Appalachians are a chain of thickly wooded mountains that stretch from Maine to Alabama. They contain rich veins of coal.
West of the Appalachians, the land drops to the greatest river in America, the mighty Mississippi. West of the Mississippi is a vast open area called the Great Plains. The Mississippi rolls along the eastern edge of the Plains.
West of the Great Plains, the Rocky Mountains rise to peaks of more than 14,000 feet (4,260 meters). They span the country from north to south. Farther west, along the coast, stands another great system of mountains, the Sierra Nevada and Cascade ranges.
In the northwestern corner of North America lies Alaska, still mostly a rugged wilderness. About 2,400 miles (3,680 kilometers) across the Pacific Ocean is Hawaii, a group of tropical islands. Alaska and Hawaii were the last two states to join the Union. They were admitted in 1959.
AMERICAN DEMOCRACY
The United States is a democracy. This means that American citizens choose their government, rather than having one forced on them. Americans choose their government by voting.
The capital of the United States is Washington, D.C. That’s where the federal (national) government is based. The United States is made up of 50 individual states. Each state has its own separate, democratically elected government.
The foundation of American democracy is the U.S. Constitution. This document, written in 1787, created the American system of government. It opens with these three words: “We, the people ….”
The Constitution defines the powers of the U.S. Congress, president, and federal courts. Just as important, the Constitution lays out the rights and freedoms of all American citizens in the Bill of Rights.
LAND OF IMMIGRANTS
Today, the United States is home to about 304 million people. That makes it the world’s third most populated country, after China and India. The motto of the United States is E Pluribus Unum. You can read it on all the nation’s coins and paper money. But what does it mean?
E Pluribus Unum is a Latin phrase that means “from many, one.” It was first used to unify the 13 English colonies in North America during the American Revolution (1775-1783). But the phrase took on new meaning when wave after wave of immigrants came to settle in the United States.
Over the last 200 years, tens of millions of people from other lands have come to live in America. Why so many? There are many answers. The United States had open space for people to build homes and towns. It had plenty of jobs. It was a place where people could practice a religion of their own choosing.
For most immigrants, the United States was a land of opportunity. It was a place for people looking to make a new life. Today, most Americans are descended from immigrants.
MELTING POT CULTURE
The United States is often called the melting pot. Most immigrants adapt to the American way of life. They “melt” together in one big pot. But they also bring their own cultures and traditions with them. These different traditions often blend together to form something new and uniquely American.
The blending of different traditions is at the heart of American culture. You can see it in food, music, clothing, architecture, and many other things.
American pizza, for instance, is adapted from a dish made by Italian immigrants. Hot dogs are based on a sausage dish made by German immigrants. The American musical styles of jazz and blues have roots in Africa. African immigrants brought their musical traditions with them. Country music has roots in the folk music carried to America by immigrants from the British Isles.
THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE
The history of the United States has not always been simple or easy. America was founded on the ideals of freedom and opportunity for all. But many people have had to struggle to gain the basic freedoms guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.
America long tolerated the enslavement of millions of people from Africa. In the 1860s, the United States split apart over the issue of slavery. The Civil War was fought to hold the country together.
Meanwhile, American pioneers pushed westward from the Atlantic Coast, building settlements in the wilderness. As they did, new states were added to the original 13, greatly expanding the size of the country. But American expansion caused conflict with Native Americans, who were gradually forced off their land.
Despite these difficulties, the United States prospered. Today, it is the world’s richest, most powerful nation. Its fertile land, diverse people, troubled past, and great successes are all a part of the American experience.
Civil War
Civil War Begins
The Civil War divided the United States into two sides: North and South. The war began on April 12, 1861, when Southern cannons bombed Northern troops holding Fort Sumter in South Carolina. This painting shows the attack.
The Civil War divided the United States into two warring sides: North and South. It is sometimes called the War Between the States. The war lasted from 1861 to 1865. More than 600,000 soldiers died in the war. The war held the United States together and ended slavery in the nation.
A DIVIDED NATION
In the 1800s, the Northern states and Southern states were very different. The Northern states were industrial. Many European immigrants had settled in the North to work in factories. The Southern states focused more on farming. Cotton and other crops were grown on large plantations in many parts of the South. Slaves from Africa tended the fields and picked the cotton.
Planters in the South owned nearly 4 million slaves. Northern states had outlawed slavery, and many Northerners believed that slavery should be outlawed in all states.
A CONTROVERSIAL PRESIDENT
When Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860, people in the South were angry. They knew Lincoln opposed slavery, and they saw him as a threat to the main source of labor for their plantations.
Even before Lincoln took office in March 1861, the state of South Carolina had seceded (broken away) from the United States. Six other cotton-growing states had soon followed South Carolina. They were Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. Later in 1861, four more states joined in seceding: Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee. These 11 states formed the Confederate States of America.
The Confederate States, or Confederacy, elected Jefferson Davis as their president. They picked Richmond, Virginia, as their capital.
The 22 states that remained in the United States were called the Union, or the North. Lincoln refused to recognize the Confederate States as separate from the rest of the country.
THE ATTACK ON FORT SUMTER
As Southern states seceded, they took control of federal forts within their boundaries. Lincoln said he intended to hold on to these forts. Union troops still occupied Fort Sumter in South Carolina.
Confederate general P. G. T. Beauregard asked the Union commander at Fort Sumter to surrender the fort. When the commander refused, Confederate cannons began firing at the fort. The Union commander surrendered two days later.
The attack on Fort Sumter outraged people in the North. President Lincoln called for 75,000 men to join the Union Army. He ordered a blockade (blocked entrance) of ports in the South.
THE FIRST BATTLES
The North expected a short war because it had many advantages over the South. The North, unlike the South, already had a national army and navy. The North also had more people, more factories, and more wealth. But the South shocked the North by winning the first battles.
THE SOUTH INVADES THE NORTH
Robert E. Lee of Virginia was the South’s best general. In September 1862, Lee led 50,000 Confederate soldiers on his first invasion of the North.
Lincoln sent 70,000 men to stop Lee. The two sides fought near Antietam, in western Maryland. The Union stopped Lee’s invasion of the North. But the Battle of Antietam was the bloodiest one-day battle of the war.
FREEING THE SLAVES
Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. The proclamation declared that slaves in the rebelling states were free.
The proclamation weakened the South and encouraged 180,000 African Americans, many of them former slaves, to join the Union Army.
BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG
Lee invaded the North a second time in June 1863. His army of 75,000 soldiers met 85,000 Union soldiers on July 1, near the Pennsylvania town of Gettysburg. They fought for three days before Lee retreated.
Congress made the battlefield a national cemetery. Lincoln gave his short but famous speech, the Gettysburg Address, at the cemetery.
LINCOLN SEARCHES FOR A GENERAL
The president appointed one general after another to lead the Union Army. But these generals didn’t prove capable of winning the war.
General Ulysses S. Grant won Lincoln’s confidence after he won an important battle at Vicksburg, Mississippi, in 1863. The victory gave the North control of the Mississippi River. This big river was an important route for steamboats carrying soldiers and supplies.
Lincoln appointed Grant to head the Union armies in March 1864.
GRANT ATTACKS
General Grant began aggressive attacks against the Confederacy. His army surrounded Petersburg, Virginia, just south of the Confederate capital of Richmond. He hoped to take control of Richmond and cut railroad links to the rest of the Confederacy.
Grant also sent General William Tecumseh Sherman and 60,000 soldiers to attack Atlanta, Georgia. After capturing that city, Sherman’s soldiers marched eastward to the Atlantic Ocean. They burned crops and tore up railroad tracks along the way. They wanted to destroy anything that might help the Confederate Army.
LEE SURRENDERS
General Lee surrendered to General Grant on April 9, 1865, at the village of Appomattox Court House in central Virginia. The war was over. The Union was preserved, but the division between North and South would take a long time to heal.