And that dust-up of 1861 - 1865 was NOT a civil war.
—
really? wow!! all this time history books have been so wrong! that will be great news to the 620,000 men or 2% of the population at the time that died.
Civil war is when opposing parties fight one another to take over the power of a country, or to exert their sole control over a country. That did NOT happen in 1861-1865, no matter what the pundits labeled the fight.
The southern states seceded, and thus were no longer part of the union. So, the fight was between two different countries. The southern states did not want to nor did they seek to overthrow the Lincoln administration. Indeed, the southern states wanted to be left alone, and to go their own way, and to let the northern states (The US of A)go their own way. Our Revolutionary war was more of a civil war than the so-called Civil War of 1861-1865, as the colonials — British subjects — fought the Crown (their own government) to get rid of that government in the colonies, and become independent.