The American Civil War Hand Painted Chess Pieces by Italfama

• Superb detail
• Presented in gift packaging
• 3.25 inch King
• Ideal for a 15.75 inch board

THE CHESS PIECES
From the smartly dressed foot soldiers bearing drums or trumpets, up through the higher ranking players astride horses or bearing a determined demeanour, these pieces are all exceptional in their detail - but we would expect nothing less from the world famous Italfama. The Rooks too are striking, each depicted as a cannon but with their own respective flag flying majestically above, each encouraging their own camp forward.

The Union King needs no introduction, with his easily recognizable stance, Abraham Lincoln was the victor in one the of the bloodiest battles in history. Jefferson Davis stands tall and imposing, ready to lead the Confederacy back into battle.

We have also matched these stunning chess pieces with a beautiful 15.75 inch Walnut and Maple Spanish board to create The American Civil War Chess Set. With or without the board, this is a superb gift for any history or chess enthusiast.

THE HISTORY
The Civil War is a central event to the history of America. Although the Revolution of 1776-1783 created the United States of America, it was the Civil War of 1861-1865 that determined what sort of nation it would become. This war settled two significant questions left unresolved by the revolution: whether the United States was to be a "dissolvable confederation of sovereign states" or "an indivisible nation with a sovereign national government” and whether "this nation who declared that all men were created with equal rights to liberty" would continue to exist as the dominant slaveholding country in the world.

The event that triggered this war developed at Fort Sumter. Claiming this United States fort as their own, the Confederate army opened fire on the federal garrison in Charleston Bay on April 12, 1861 and forced it to lower the American flag in surrender. The real fighting began in 1862 and the huge battles in Tennessee, Virginia, and Maryland hinted at the even bigger campaigns and battles from Gettysburg in Pennsylvania to Vicksburg on the Mississippi and to Chickamauga and Atlanta in Georgia.

For three long years, from 1862 to 1865, Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia endured and thwarted invasions and attacks by the Union Army of the Potomac. Finally Grant finally called checkmate on Lee at Appomattox in April 1865 at which time all the principal Confederate armies surrendered, and when Union cavalry captured the fugitive Confederate President Jefferson Davis in Georgia on May 10, 1865, resistance collapsed and the war ended. The arduous process of rebuilding a united nation free of slavery began.

So the Northern victory in the war upheld the USA as one nation and finally terminated the institution of slavery - but at the cost of 625,000 lives. This is nearly as many American soldiers that died in all the other wars in which the US has fought, COMBINED. This Civil War was the largest and most destructive conflict in the Western world between the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 and the onset of World War I in 1914.

Pieces Only - See "Themed Chess Sets" for a complete set.