Why did americans move west in the years following the civil war?
The Americans moved west because the most precious metal,gold,was discovered there.This is called gold rush in the history.
A gold rush is a period of feverish migration of workers to an area that has had a dramatic discovery of gold deposits.
Gold rushes were typically marked by a general buoyant feeling of a "free for all" in income mobility,in which any single individual might become abundantly wealthy almost instantly,as expressed in the California Dream.
Gold rushes helped spur a huge immigration that often led to permanent settlement of new regions and define a significant part of the culture of the Australian and North American frontiers.As well,at a time when the world's money supply was based on gold,the newly-mined gold provided economic stimulus far beyond the gold fields.