U.S. President Donald Trump, in an interview with the Washington Examiner this week, wondered: Why was there a Civil War? Why could that one not have been worked out? The United States fought the civil war from 1861-1865. The war began after 11 southern states left the United States and formed the Confederacy. Over 600,000 soldiers lost their lives before the Confederacy was defeated. Now, over 150 years later, the battle is still fought in some communities over calls to remove flags, statues and other public displays connected to the Confederacy. Civil War historian James McPherson wrote that the Civil War was caused by differences between free and slave states over the power of the national government to stop slavery” in western territories. It is the Confederacy’s connection to slavery that recently led the southern city of New Orleans, Louisiana, to begin removing four monuments, or statues, connected to the Civil War and its aftermath. Slavery was the buying and selling of Africans and other blacks who were forced to work in America, mostly in the South, without pay. Many were separated from their families and treated terribly by their owners.