- Abraham Lincoln: signed the Emancipation Proclamation into law
- Clara Barton: founder of the American Red Cross
- Dorothea Dix: a leader of the US Sanitary Commission; later named superintendent of nurses
- Frederick Douglass: abolitionist; fought and won for black soldiers' right to join the army
- George McClellan: General of the Union Army; fired by Lincoln for being too cautious
- James Buchanan: 15th President of the US; offered to protect slavery to keep the union together
- Jefferson Davis: 1st and only President of the CSA
- John Crittenden: Senator who proposed slavery be protected by the Constitution
- Robert E. Lee: leader of Southern forces during the Civil War
- Salmon P. Chase: established a national banking system and the issue of a legal tender paper currency
- Ulysses S. Grant: general of the Union Army; captured Vicksburg; led the North to victory
- William Tecumseh Sherman: Union general; captured Atlanta; burned Atlanta