Union general Ulysses S. Grant pulled his troops out of the Battle of Cold Harbor in Hanover County, Virginia, ending one of the bloodiest, most lopsided battles in the American Civil War.

The Union is a term used to refer to the federal government and loyal states of the United States during the American Civil War. Its military forces and civilian population resisted the purported secession of the slave states that formed the Confederate States of America following the 1860 election of Abraham Lincoln as president of the United States. Lincoln's administration asserted the permanency of the federal government and the continuity of the United States Constitution, and it refused to recognize the Confederate government.