High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! There were a good number of battles and other scenes of the American Civil War, and collectively they have provided the world with a visual first hand account of this otherwise fleeting period in American history. The American Civil War (1861–65) was the fourth war in history to be caught on camera. The first Mexican-American War (1846–48), the Crimean War (1854–56), and the Indian Rebellion of 1857.