The "Americal Civil War"

The truth is, the conflict that the former United States was embroiled in from 1861 to 1865 was not a Civil War.

Merriam-Webster Online and the Oxford English Diction both state the following pertaining to the phrase Civil War:Main Entry: civil war
Function: noun:
a war between opposing groups of citizens of the same country

When the phrase American Civil War is entered into the search bow at DICTIONARY.COM the following result it encountered:
American Civil War
–noun
the war in the U.S. between the North and the South, 1861–65.
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

In 1861 thirteen provences of the United States of America succeded from the Union and formed their own nation known as, The Confederate States of America. The two nations, The United States and The Confederate States, later engaged in war, this war is known today as the American Civil War. How is this war a civil war if it was infact fought by two diffrent nations.

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JLW