Confederate States of America: Definition from Answers.com

Confederate States of America, a breakaway slaveholding republic founded in February 1861 after the secession from the Union of the lower South states. It originally comprised seven states (South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas) but gained four additional members from the upper South (Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina) in the wake of President Abraham Lincoln's decision to force the seceded states back into the Union after the attack on Fort Sumter in April. The overall population of the Confederate States in 1861 was approximately 9 million, of whom 3.5 million were African American slaves.

Founding

Delegates from the lower South states met in convention in early February in Montgomery, Alabama, to write a new constitution. They quickly agreed on a provisional document, and under its authority elected Jefferson Davis of Mississippi and Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia as president and vice president, respectively. On 11 March 1861, delegates unanimously adopted a permanent constitution for the Confederate States. Most of the new constitution's provisions were identical to those of its federal counterpart, but some changes reflected the new republic's states-rights origins and distinctive society. There was no general welfare clause; Confederate funding of internal improvements was prohibited and protective tariffs banned; and the Confederate president was to serve a single six-year term. The constitution forbade the passage of any law undermining the holding of slaves—the Confederacy's founders avoided the euphemisms of their federal forefathers—but delegates rejected a reopening of the foreign slave trade, which many radicals had been advocating. The convention also rejected proposals to incorporate into the constitution the right of secession. In general, Confederate founding represented the defeat of "fire-eating" radicalism and a reassertion of the conservative political authority of the South's planter class.

Organization and Mobilization

For the first year of the Confederacy's existence, members of its constitutional convention also served as members of the provisional congress. In May 1861, the congress voted—over President Davis's veto—to move the Confederate capital from Montgomery to Richmond, Virginia. The switch was made possible by Virginia's ratification of secession on 23 May and dictated by Richmond's location, size, and commercial and industrial capacity; among other things, Richmond was the site of the Tredegar Iron Works, the largest facility of its kind in the South. Military mobilization began almost as soon as political organization, and throughout 1861 and early 1862, the congress passed numerous acts designed to stimulate and regulate recruitment. This legislation produced a bewildering situation in which volunteers could enter the Confederate army either directly or as members of state militias and could serve for terms that ranged from six months to three years. The number of those willing to serve during the first few months of the war far exceeded the quantity of available arms, thereby limiting the army's capabilities. By the end of 1861, however, enthusiasm for volunteering had begun to decline, and the imminent expiry of the twelve-month recruits' term of service caused the Confederate congress on 16 April 1862 to enact the first conscription law in American history. The law required three years of service from men aged eighteen to thirty-five. The upper age limit was extended to forty-five on 27 September 1862. Finally, on 17 February 1864, the congress required military service from all able-bodied men aged seventeen to fifty, with those under eighteen and over forty-five being reserved for state defense. One of the most contentious aspects of Confederate conscription was the policy of exemption, first defined in April 1862 to include Confederate and state officials and a range of occupations such as telegraph operators, transportation workers, and ministers of religion. On 11 October 1862, the list was considerably expanded to bring in industrial workers and, most controversially, to exempt from military service men responsible for overseeing twenty slaves or more. Widespread abuses prompted congress in the February 1864 act to end industrial exemptions. Conscripts could also avoid Confederate service by hiring substitutes, a policy that encouraged corruption and, like exemption, aroused resentment from those who charged that it discriminated against the poorer classes. As a result, substitution was abolished in December 1863. In total, an estimated 900,000 men served in the Confederate armed forces, or just under half the number of their federal opponents.

Government and Politics

The Confederate government was closely modeled on that of the federal Union. The most conspicuous differences were the single, six-year terms for the president and vice president, and the failure to establish a Confederate supreme court, provision for which had been made in the new constitution. In November 1861, Jefferson Davis and Alexander Stephens were elected president and vice president under the permanent constitution. As provisional president, Davis had selected his cabinet initially upon the basis of state representation. Filling the most important positions were Robert Toombs of Georgia as secretary of state, Christopher G. Memminger of South Carolina as secretary of the treasury, and Leroy P. Walker of Alabama as secretary of war. Anxious to pursue his military and political ambitions, Toombs resigned in July 1861 and was replaced by Robert M. T. Hunter of Virginia, the first of many cabinet changes that Davis was forced to make. In total, the Confederacy had four secretaries of state, five attorney generals, two secretaries of the treasury, and six secretaries of war. Probably the most able cabinet member was Judah P. Benjamin of Louisiana, whose prominent role in the Davis administration aroused resentment because of his Jewish background. Benjamin served the Confederacy between 1861 and 1865 as attorney general, secretary of war, and secretary of state.

The Confederate congress sat as a provisional unicameral body during the republic's first year and was replaced by a permanent senate and house in February 1862. The congress's contribution to Confederate governance was undermined by its high turnover of personnel: only about 10 percent of members served continuously from 1861 to 1865, with many of the South's planter-politicians preferring to serve in the army rather than the legislature. Overseeing the senate was the vice president Alexander Stephens, who emerged as one of Davis's most passionate critics. Political opposition to Davis was apparent from early in the war, but it intensified after the congressional elections of 1863, which, despite their low turnout, represented a judgment on the Confederate government's conduct of the war, indeed on the Confederacy itself. The second Confederate congress, which convened in May 1864, saw a significant rise in the number of antiadministration members. Despite constant disagreement, however, the Confederate president in the main kept control of policymaking and was generally supported by the legislature on important issues. Jefferson Davis exercised his veto power thirty-nine times, and on every occasion except one—a bill to allow free postage on soldiers' newspapers—Congress upheld his action. As defeat in the war approached in early 1865, the legislature, led by the volatile senator Louis Wigfall of Texas, sought to assert its authority over the president by insisting on changes to the civil and military administration. The demands included the resignation of the cabinet, which Davis resisted even while accepting the departure of James A. Seddon, the secretary of war, and the granting of extra power to the general-in-chief, Robert E. Lee, to which the president acceded.

By far, the Confederacy's most significant departure from previous American practice was the absence of a two-party system. Secession and Confederate founding in many respects had been a reaction against party politics, which Davis and other leaders, reverting to an earlier ideology, regarded as corrupting and antipathetic to their vision of southern unity. But political opposition to the Davis government could not be stilled, and, from the outset, serious differences arose over major aspects of wartime policy, including conscription and impressment. In the absence of political parties, opposition was fragmented, individualistic, and often highly personal in tone. Much of the public opposition to the Davis administration came from governors, who were anxious to protect state prerogatives against the encroachments of Confederate nationalism, and by far the most persistent of the gubernatorial critics was Governor Joseph E. Brown of Georgia, who viewed the policy of conscription as destructive of both states' rights and popular liberty. Although states' rights opposition may have helped undermine public confidence in Davis's conduct of the war, it failed to deflect the president, whose actions were endorsed by Congress and, crucially, by state supreme courts that invariably found the conscription legislation to be constitutional.

Foreign Relations

A number of factors, including widespread contemporary belief in free trade and the legitimacy of secession, caused southern leaders to expect European and especially British support. Nonetheless, the Confederate States used the power of "King Cotton" to try to ensure that support. Cotton accounted for approximately three-quarters of American exports to Britain during the late 1850s, and an estimated 20 percent of the British population earned its livelihood directly or indirectly from the manufacture of cotton products. If cotton was withheld, southerners insisted, Britain and France would be forced to intervene and, at the very least, formally recognize the independence of the Confederate States. Ironically, the strategy backfired, partly as a result of the South's own success as a producer: in 1861, cotton stocks in British warehouses had never been greater, obviating any immediate need for action by the textile industry. As part of the Confederate strategy to gain recognition, diplomats urged European governments to accept that the federal blockade of southern ports was illegal, a "paper" blockade, but were unable to explain why, if that was the case, the South itself was avoiding sending raw cotton to Europe.

The first Confederate commission to Europe—William L. Yancey, A. Dudley Mann, and Pierre A. Rost—failed to capitalize on the opportunities arising from Britain and France's neutrality proclamations of, respectively, May and June 1861. In November, two new envoys, James M. Mason and John A. Slidell, were appointed. Seized by the Union navy from the British steamship Trent, Mason and Slidell were eventually released and arrived in Europe in January 1862. Throughout 1862 and 1863, Mason and Slidell continued to press the British and French governments on the recognition issue but without success. Their diplomatic effort was assisted by a propaganda campaign spearheaded by the Swiss-born Henry Hotze, who in May 1862 established The Index, a weekly newspaper published in London. In the second half of that year, both the British and French governments considered mediation proposals but the former was unprepared to act without significant evidence of Confederate military progress and the latter would not act without Britain. The onset of Lincoln's emancipation policy in 1862 also changed the debate about the nature of the American conflict, rendering it more difficult for Britain and France to consider action on behalf of a slaveholding republic.

The following summer, 1863, southern diplomatic spirits briefly revived when the British parliament debated a motion for Confederate recognition proposed by John A. Roebuck, who had privately discussed intervention with the French emperor. However, Roebuck's initiative collapsed after failing to gain the support of either the British government or Tory opposition. Military setbacks at Gettysburg and Vicksburg in July 1863 further frustrated southern attempts to persuade skeptical Europeans about the need for intervention, and after the withdrawal of Roebuck's motion, Confederate diplomacy in Europe was in retreat. Particularly significant was the British government's change of policy over Confederate warships being built in Britain. In July 1862, the Alabama had escaped from the Laird shipyards near Liverpool to begin a destructive career against Union commerce, but the following year the government accepted the U.S. argument that permitting the construction of such vessels violated British neutrality. By 1863, anti-British feeling in the Confederacy was running high, and in October, following several months of incidents, the Davis cabinet unanimously agreed to the expulsion of all British consuls in the South. Confederate relations with France, which invaded Mexico in 1863, proved more productive, particularly on the commercial front, though again failed to achieve the desired aim of recognition. In early 1865, the Confederacy played its final diplomatic card when it dispatched Duncan F. Kenner of Louisiana to Europe with an offer to emancipate the slaves in exchange for recognition. The mission predictably proved a failure, as by this time both Britain and France were convinced of the Confederacy's imminent defeat.

Economy and Society

An agricultural society overwhelmingly geared to the production of staple crops, the Confederate States of America was seriously deficient in the economic resources necessary to fight a protracted war for independence. Southern industrial capacity was dwarfed by that of the federal states, which on the eve of the conflict had produced approximately 90 percent of the nation's manufactured goods. Broadly self-sufficient in food production, the South lacked an adequate transportation system, with its railroads in particular comparing poorly in mileage and quality to those of the industrializing North. During the war, the Confederate government through its various War and Navy Department supply bureaus made great strides toward remedying its industrial shortfall, and by 1863 the South had begun to meet its military-industrial needs. Driving the development in state-sponsored manufacturing was the Pennsylvania-born ordnance chief, General Josiah Gorgas. His overall contribution to the Confederate war effort was immense; without his energy and organizational genius, the southern republic's armed forces would have proved even less capable of resisting its far better equipped and resourced northern rival.

Financing the war also proved a problem for a society that traditionally was not persuaded by the merits of taxation. Initially, the Confederacy raised funds through a variety of bonds, loans, and taxes; the latter included an export tariff of one-eighth cent a pound on raw cotton. In August 1861, under the provisional constitution, the Confederate congress passed a direct tax on all property, including slaves. The measure largely proved ineffective as the majority of the states, who had been encouraged to assume responsibility for the tax, chose to raise the money by borrowing rather than by direct imposition on the people. Over the next two years, debate raged about the expediency and constitutionality of direct taxation. Finally, on 24 April 1863, the Confederate congress passed into law a comprehensive bill whose provisions included occupational and license taxes, a graduated income tax, and a tax-in-kind on agricultural products, including livestock. The 1863 act was resented by many sections of society, including hard-pressed farmers; it proved costly and difficult to enforce, and evasion was widespread. In total, the Confederacy raised only about a twentieth of its revenue from taxation. Overwhelmingly, the war was financed through loans, both Confederate and state-issued, and by the printing of a constant supply of redeemable treasury notes. The Confederacy's currency never became legal tender, however, and the number of notes in circulation soon far outstripped need, fueling inflation. In early 1863 the government also sought to harness its most valuable agricultural commodity by negotiating a cotton-backed loan of $15 million with the French financiers, Erlanger and Company, but the initiative proved a failure as military defeats gradually undermined the Confederacy's international credit.

Inflation was economically and socially corrosive and helped to undermine the confidence of ordinary southerners in the Confederacy. By 1863, many families were experiencing severe hardship. Although Confederate supply never entirely failed, numerous factors, including labor depletions, the crumbling transportation system, and the tightening of the Union blockade, left communities bereft of food and other essential items. In 1863, "bread" riots broke out in many southern towns and cities. The largest incident occurred in April, when female-led demonstrators, fueled by anger over military impressment of food supplies, attacked stores in the capital, Richmond, and were only dispersed after the arrival of President Jefferson Davis. Such localized unrest, however, reflected a broader pattern of social disaffection. As the screws of war tightened, class resentments between small farmers and planters intensified. Many nonslaveholders came to believe that the conflict was no longer being fought in their interest, and they pointed to the Confederate policies of exemption, substitution, and impressment as evidence of a "rich man's war, poor man's fight." By 1864 the disillusionment of many ordinary people was being reflected in increased levels of desertion from the army and in the growth of disaffected areas in states such as Alabama, Georgia, and North Carolina. While many southerners continued to support the Confederate war effort, their patriotism now focused on General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia rather than the government in Richmond.

The greatest breakdown occurred in black-white relations. Despite their public confidence in slave loyalty, owners could not afford to relax their guard as the war made deep incursions into the South's economic and social life. Fears of insurrection were common from the beginning of the conflict. Although no large-scale black uprisings occurred between 1861 and 1865, the Confederacy's African American population rarely failed to demonstrate its preference for freedom over slavery when the chance arose. As federal troops approached, masters were often forced to move their slaves into the interior. This movement, known as "refugeeing," helped loosen the bonds of slavery as familiar plantation routines were abandoned. Slave discipline was also undermined by the Confederate government's impressment of black labor for service on military defenses and other installations, and by rapid wartime urbanization that drew large numbers of rural slaves into towns and cities where white supervision was harder to maintain. In areas penetrated by the Union army, disruption of the plantation system was extensive. From early in the war, refugees from slavery sought sanctuary in the camps of the northern invaders. In 1862, the Union began to accept black troops into its armed forces; after Lincoln's emancipation proclamation of 1 January 1863 increasing numbers of slaves escaped from the South to enlist in the struggle against their former masters. Of the 180,000 Africans Americans who fought in the Union army, approximately three-quarters had been slaves. In late 1864, faced with an acute manpower shortage, the Davis government began to contemplate arming the South's slaves. Although the proposal aroused virulent opposition from all sections, in March 1865 the Confederate congress passed a bill providing for the enlistment of black troops while at the same time rejecting the guarantee of emancipation. However, the war ended before the legislation could be implemented.

Defeat

The surrender of General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Courthouse on 9 April 1865 effectively ended the Confederate States of America's bid for independent nationhood. Members of the Davis government, including the president, had evacuated Richmond on 2 April, fleeing south, but lingering hopes of continuing the struggle were soon quashed when the Confederacy's other main surviving force, General Joseph E. Johnston's Army of Tennessee, capitulated on 26 April near Durham Station, North Carolina. Davis himself was captured at Irwinville, Georgia, on 10 May.

The collapse of the Confederate States resulted from a military defeat in which the superior human and material resources of the Union proved decisive. Other factors that contributed to the South's final inability to resist federal power include the lack of political unity, the failure of King Cotton diplomacy, and popular demoralization. Postwar southern ideology insisted that the Confederacy had been united in its opposition to the North. In truth, large numbers of southerners, black and white, had failed consistently to support the bid for independence and in many cases had actively resisted it.

Bibliography

Beringer, Richard E., Herman Hattaway, Archer Jones, and William N. Still Jr. Why the South Lost the Civil War. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1986.

Coulter, E. Merton. The Confederate States of America 1861–1865. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1950.

Durden, Robert F. The Gray and the Black: The Confederate Debate on Emancipation. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1972.

Eaton, Clement. A History of the Southern Confederacy. New York: Macmillan, 1954.

Escott, Paul D. After Secession: Jefferson Davis and the Failure of Confederate Nationalism. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1978.

Faust, Drew Gilpin. The Creation of Confederate Nationalism: Ideology and Identity in the Civil War South. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988.

Freehling, William W. The South versus the South: How Anti-Confederate Southerners Shaped the Course of the Civil War. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Gallagher, Gary W. The Confederate War. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997.

Hubbard, Charles M. The Burden of Confederate Diplomacy. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1998.

Mohr, Clarence. On the Threshold of Freedom: Masters and Slaves in Civil War Georgia. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1986.

Neely, Mark E., Jr. Southern Rights: Political Prisoners and the Myth of Confederate Constitutionalism. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1999.

Owsley, Frank L. King Cotton Diplomacy: Foreign Relations of the Confederate States of America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1931, 1936, 1959.

Rable, George C. The Confederate Republic: A Revolution against Politics. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994.

Ramsdell, Charles W. Behind the Lines in the Southern Confederacy. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1944.

Roland, Charles P. The Confederacy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960.

Thomas, Emory M. The Confederate Nation, 1861–1865. New York: Harper and Row, 1979.

Todd, Richard C. Confederate Finance. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1954.

Vandiver, Frank E. Ploughshares into Swords: Josiah Gorgas and Confederate Ordnance. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1952.

Wiley, Bell I. Southern Negroes, 1861–1865. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1938. Reprinted in 1953 and 1974.

Woodward, C. Vann, ed. Mary Chesnut's Civil War. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1981.

Yearns, Wilfred B. The Confederate Congress. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1960.

We, the people of the Confederate States, each State acting in its sovereign and independent character, in order to form a more permanent federal government, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity—invoking the favour and guidance of Almighty God—do ordain and establish this Constitution for the Confederate States of America.

—Preamble to the Constitution of the Confederate States

SOURCE: Reprinted from James D. Richardson, The Messages and Papers of Jefferson Davis and the Confederacy, 2 vols. New York, 1983

Use all the negroes you can get, for all the purposes for which you need them, but don't arm them. The day you make soldiers of them is the beginning of the end of the revolution. If slaves will make good soldiers our whole theory of slavery is wrong—but they won't make soldiers.

—Howell Cobb to James A. Seddon, 8 January 1865

SOURCE: From Vol. 3 of War of the Rebellion: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series IV. 130 vols. Washington, D.C., 1888–1901.

—Martin Crawford

For the 2004 film, see C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America.

Confederate States of America

←

1861–1865

→


Flag	Confederate Seal

Motto
Deo Vindice (Latin)
"With God our Vindicator"

Anthem
(none official)
"God Save the South" (unofficial)
"The Bonnie Blue Flag" (popular)
"Dixie" (traditional)

Capital

Montgomery, Alabama
(until May 29, 1861)
Richmond, Virginia
(May 29, 1861–April 2, 1865)
Danville, Virginia
(from April 3, 1865)

Language(s)

English (de facto)

Government

Confederation

President

- 1861-1865

Jefferson Davis

Vice President

- 1861-1865

Alexander Stephens

Legislature

Congress of the Confederate States

Historical era

American Civil War

- Confederacy formed

February 8, 1861

- Start of Civil War

April 12, 1861

- Military collapse^[1]

April 9, 1865

Area

- 1860¹

1,995,392 km² (770,425 sq mi)

Population

- 1860¹ est.

9,103,332

Density

4.6 /km² (11.8 /sq mi)

- slaves² est.

3,521,110

Currency

CSA dollar
State Currencies

¹ Area and population values do not include Missouri and Kentucky nor the Territory of Arizona. Water area: 5.7%.
² Slaves included in above population count 1860 Census

The Confederate States of America (also called the Confederacy, the Confederate States, the South and the CSA) was a separatist political entity existing between 1861 to 1865, established by eleven southern slave states of the United States of America, each of which had previously declared its secession from the United States. The CSA's control over its claimed territory varied during the course of the American Civil War, depending on the success of its military.

Asserting that states had a right to secede, seven states declared their independence from the United States before the inauguration of Abraham Lincoln as President on March 4, 1861; four more did so after the Civil War began at the Battle of Fort Sumter (April 1861). The government of the United States of America (The Union) regarded secession as illegal and refused to recognize the Confederacy. Although British and French commercial interests sold the Confederacy warships and materials, no European nation officially recognized the CSA as an independent country.^[2]^[3]

The CSA effectively collapsed when Generals Robert E. Lee and Joseph E. Johnston surrendered their armies in April 1865. The last meeting of its Cabinet took place in Georgia in May. Union troops captured the Confederate President Jefferson Davis near Irwinville, Georgia on May 10, 1865. Nearly all remaining Confederate forces surrendered by the end of June. A decade-long process known as Reconstruction expelled ex-Confederate leaders from office, gave civil rights and the right to vote to the freedmen, and re-admitted the states to representation in Congress.

History

States under CSA control States and territories claimed by CSA without formal secession and/or control

Seceding states

Confederate States in the American Civil War

South Carolina Mississippi Florida Alabama Georgia Louisiana Texas Virginia Arkansas North Carolina Tennessee
Dual governments
Kentucky Missouri
Border states
Delaware Maryland West Virginia
Claimed territories
Oklahoma Arizona

Seven states declared their secession before Lincoln took office on March 4, 1861:

South Carolina (December 20, 1860)^[4]^[5]
Mississippi (January 9, 1861)^[6]
Florida (January 10, 1861)^[7]
Alabama (January 11, 1861)^[8]
Georgia (January 19, 1861)^[9]
Louisiana (January 26, 1861)^[10]
Texas (February 1, 1861)^[11]

After the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, and Lincoln's subsequent call for troops on April 15, four more states declared their secession:^[12]

Virginia (April 17, 1861; ratified by voters May 23, 1861)^[13]
Arkansas (May 6, 1861)^[14]
Tennessee (May 7, 1861; ratified by voters June 8, 1861)^[15]^[16]
North Carolina (May 20, 1861)^[17]

The border states of Kentucky and Missouri declared neutrality very early in the war. In Kentucky, the state gradually came to side with the north; however a second government (pro-Confederate) emerged in some southern counties (much like the situation in the counties that would become West Virginia) although its control in those regions did not last very long. A more complex situation surrounds the Missouri Secession. In Missouri the majority of the legislature and the governor passed an ordinance of secession.^[18] However, this occurred after a standing constitutional convention declared the legislature and governor void after Federal troops marched on and took over the capital. Missouri, since the Union already controlled most of it, was exempted from the Emancipation Proclamation that outlawed slavery elsewhere. However, the standing State constitutional convention repealed slavery in Missouri before Federal constitutional amendments passed. The Confederacy recognized the pro-Confederate claimants in both Kentucky and Missouri and laid claim to those states based on their authority, with representatives from both states seated in the Confederate Congress. Later versions of Confederate flags had thirteen stars, reflecting the Confederacy's claims to Kentucky and Missouri.

In 1861 the authorities declared martial law in Maryland (the state which borders the U.S. capital, Washington, D.C., on three sides) in order to block attempts at secession. Delaware, also a slave state, never considered secession, nor did Washington, D.C. Although the slave states of Maryland and Delaware did not secede, citizens from those states did exhibit divided loyalties. Only Delaware among the slave states did not produce a full regiment to fight for the Confederacy. Delaware achieved the distinction of providing more soldiers by percentage than any other state, and overwhelmingly they fought for the Union.

In 1861, a Unionist legislature in Wheeling, Virginia seceded from Virginia, eventually claiming 50 counties for a new state. However, 24 of those counties had voted in favor of Virginia's secession, and control of these counties, as well as some counties that had voted against secession, remained contested until the end of the war.^[19] West Virginia joined the United States in 1863 with a constitution that gradually abolished slavery. According to military historian Russell F. Weigley "Most of West Virginia went through the Civil War not as an asset to the Union but as a troublesome battleground..."^[20]

Confederate declarations of martial law checked attempts to secede from the Confederate States of America by some counties in East Tennessee.^[21]^[22]

West Virginia counties approving Virginia's secession from the U.S.

Seceding territories

Main articles: New Mexico Territory in the American Civil War and Indian Territory in the American Civil War

Citizens at Mesilla and Tucson in the southern part of New Mexico Territory (modern day New Mexico and Arizona) formed a secession convention, which voted to join the Confederacy on March 16, 1861 and appointed Lewis Owings as the new territorial governor. In July, the Mesilla government appealed to Confederate troops in El Paso, Texas, under Lieutenant Colonel John Baylor for help in removing the Union Army under Major Isaac Lynde that had taken up position nearby. The Confederates defeated Lynde's forces at the Battle of Mesilla on July 27, 1861. After the battle, Baylor established a territorial government for the Confederate Arizona Territory and named himself governor. The Confederacy proclaimed the portion of the New Mexico Territory south of the 34th parallel as the Confederate Arizona Territory, on February 14, 1862,^[23] with Mesilla serving as the territorial capital.^[24] In 1862 the Confederate General Henry Hopkins Sibley led a New Mexico Campaign to take the northern half of New Mexico. Although Confederates briefly occupied the territorial capital of Santa Fe, they suffered defeat at Glorietta Pass in March and retreated, never to return. The Union regained military control of the area, and on February 24, 1863 set up the Arizona Territory with Fort Whipple as the capital.

Confederate supporters also claimed portions of modern-day Oklahoma as Confederate territory after the Union abandoned and evacuated the federal forts and installations in the territory. The five tribal governments of the Indian Territory — which became Oklahoma in 1907 — mainly supported the Confederacy, providing troops and one general officer. On July 12, 1861 the newly formed Confederate States government signed a treaty with both the Choctaw and Chickasaw Indian nations in the Indian Territory.^[25]^[26] After 1863 the tribal governments sent representatives to the Confederate Congress: Elias Cornelius Boudinot representing the Cherokee and Samuel Benton Callahan representing the Seminole and Creek people. The Cherokee, in their declaration of causes, gave as reasons for aligning with the Confederacy the similar institutions and interests of the Cherokee nation and the Southern states, alleged violations of the Constitution by the North, claimed that the North waged war against Southern commercial and political freedom and for the abolition of slavery in general and in the Indian Territory in particular, and that the North intended to seize Indian lands as had happened in the past.^[27]

Causes of secession

Main article: Origins of the American Civil War

By 1860, sectional disagreements between North and South revolved primarily around the maintenance or expansion of slavery. Historian Drew Gilpin Faust observed that "leaders of the secession movement across the South cited slavery as the most compelling reason for southern independence."^[28] Related and intertwined secondary issues also fueled the dispute; these secondary differences (real or perceived) included tariffs, agrarianism vs. industrialization, and states' rights. The immediate spark for secession came from the victory of the Republican Party and the election of Abraham Lincoln in the 1860 elections. Civil War historian James M. McPherson wrote:

To southerners the election’s most ominous feature was the magnitude of Republican victory north of the 41st parallel. Lincoln won more than 60 percent of the vote in that region, losing scarcely two dozen counties. Three-quarters of the Republican congressmen and senators in the next Congress would represent this “Yankee” and antislavery portion of the free states. The New Orleans Crescent saw these facts as “full of portentous significance”. “The idle canvas prattle about Northern conservatism may now be dismissed,” agreed the Richmond Examiner. “A party founded on the single sentiment... of hatred of African slavery, is now the controlling power.” No one could any longer “be deluded... that the Black Republican party is a moderate” party, pronounced the New Orleans Delta. “It is in fact, essentially, a revolutionary party.”^[29]

Four of the seceding states, the Deep South states of South Carolina,^[30] Mississippi,^[31] Georgia,^[32] and Texas,^[33] issued formal declarations of causes, each of which identified the threat to slaveholders’ rights as the cause of, or a major cause of, secession. Georgia also claimed a general Federal policy of favoring Northern over Southern economic interests. In what later became known as the Cornerstone Speech, C.S. Vice President Alexander Stephens declared that the "cornerstone" of the new government "rest[ed] upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery—subordination to the superior race—is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth".^[34]

Historian William J. Cooper Jr., in his biography of the Confederate president Jefferson Davis, wrote, “From at least the time of the American Revolution white southerners defined their liberty, in part, as the right to own slaves and to decide the fate of the institution without any outside interference.”^[35] Speaking specifically of Davis, Cooper wrote:

For his entire life he believed in the superiority of the white race. He also owned slaves, defended slavery as moral and as a social good, and fought a great war to maintain it. After 1865 he opposed new rights for blacks. He rejoiced at the collapse of Reconstruction and the reassertion of white superiority with its accompanying black subordination.^[36]

In his farewell speech to the United States Congress, Davis made clear his view that the secession crisis had stemmed from the Republican Party's failure "to recognize our domestic institutions [an acknowledged euphemism for slavery] which pre-existed the formation of the Union — our property which was guarded by the Constitution."^[37]

Religion, slavery and secession

As the nation divided over slavery, religion exacerbated the sectional differences. Methodists, Baptists, and Presbyterians in the first half of the nineteenth century expressed reservations about slavery,^[38] but by 1850 John C. Calhoun would note that “already three great evangelical churches had been torn asunder” over slavery.^[39] By the 1850s, as sectional tensions over slavery grew, more and more ministers in the South “who openly resisted southern evangelicals’ accommodation with slavery found themselves silenced or driven out of the South”.^[40]

Rise and fall of the Confederacy

The American Civil War broke out in April 1861 with the Battle of Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina. Federal troops of the U.S. had retreated to Fort Sumter soon after South Carolina declared its secession on 20 December 1860. U.S. President Buchanan had attempted to re-supply Sumter by sending the Star of the West, but Confederate forces fired upon the ship, driving it away. U.S. President Abraham Lincoln also attempted to resupply Sumter. Lincoln notified South Carolina Governor Francis W. Pickens that "an attempt will be made to supply Fort Sumter with provisions only, and that if such attempt be not resisted, no effort to throw in men, arms, or ammunition will be made without further notice, [except] in case of an attack on the fort." However, suspecting just such an attempt to reinforce the fort, the Confederate cabinet decided at a meeting in Montgomery to capture Fort Sumter before the relief fleet arrived.

On April 12, 1861, Confederate troops, following orders from Davis and his Secretary of War, fired upon the federal troops occupying Fort Sumter, forcing their surrender. After the war, Confederate Vice President Alexander H. Stephens maintained that Lincoln's attempt to reinforce Sumter had provoked the war.^[41]

Following the Battle of Fort Sumter, Lincoln called for the remaining states in the Union to send troops to recapture Sumter and other forts and customs-houses^[42] in the South that Confederate forces had claimed, sometimes by force. Lincoln issued this call before Congress could convene on the matter, and the original request from the War Department called for volunteers for only three months of duty.^[42] Lincoln's call for troops resulted in four more states voting to secede rather than provide troops for the Union. Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina joined the Confederacy, bringing the total to eleven states. Once Virginia had joined, the Confederate States moved their capital from Montgomery, Alabama, to Richmond, Virginia. All but two major battles (Antietam and Gettysburg) took place in Confederate territory.

By 1862, the Union had taken control of New Orleans, and had gained control of the contested northernmost slave states (Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware and West Virginia). Two major Confederate incursions into Union territory, into Maryland in 1862 and into Pennsylvania in 1863, each proved temporary. By 1863 the Union held control of most of Tennessee; with the fall of Vicksburg, Mississippi on July 4 of that year, the Union gained complete control over the Mississippi River, cutting off the westernmost portions of the Confederacy (Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas). In 1864, the Union took Mobile, Alabama, the last major port on the Gulf Coast, and by the end of the year Atlanta had fallen to Union troops, paving the way for the March to the Sea by William Tecumseh Sherman's forces, which reached Savannah by the end of the year, devastating the Confederate heartland and cutting the eastern Confederacy in half. The Union took the Confederate capital, Richmond, Virginia, in April 1865. Historians generally regard the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia by General Lee at the village of Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865 as the end of the Confederate States.^[43] Unionists captured President Davis at Irwinville, Georgia, on May 10,^[44] and the remaining Confederate armies had surrendered by June 1865. The crew of the CSS Shenandoah hauled down the last Confederate flag at Liverpool in the UK on November 6, 1865.^[45]

Government and politics

Constitution

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Constitution of the Confederate States of America

Jefferson Davis
President 1861-1865

The Southern leaders met in Montgomery, Alabama, to write their constitution. Much of the Confederate States Constitution replicated the United States Constitution verbatim, but it contained several explicit protections of the institution of slavery, though it maintained the existing ban on international slave-trading. In certain areas, the Confederate Constitution gave greater powers to the states (or curtailed the powers of the central government more) than the U.S. Constitution of the time did, but in other areas, the states actually lost rights they had under the U.S. Constitution. Although the Confederate Constitution, like the U.S. Constitution, contained a commerce clause, the Confederate version prohibited the central government from using revenues collected in one state for funding internal improvements in another state. The Confederate Constitution's equivalent to the U.S. Constitution's general welfare clause prohibited protective tariffs (but allowed tariffs for providing domestic revenue), and spoke of "carry[ing] on the Government of the Confederate States" rather than providing for the "general welfare". State legislatures had the power to impeach officials of the Confederate government in some cases. On the other hand, the Confederate Constitution contained a Necessary and Proper Clause and a Supremacy Clause that essentially duplicated the respective clauses of the U.S. Constitution.

The Confederate Constitution did not specifically include a provision allowing states to secede; the Preamble spoke of each state "acting in its sovereign and independent character" but also of the formation of a "permanent federal government". During the debates on drafting the Confederate Constitution, one proposal would have allowed states to secede from the Confederacy. The proposal was tabled with only the South Carolina delegates voting in favor of considering the motion.^[46] The Confederate Constitution also explicitly denied States the power to bar slaveholders from other parts of the Confederacy from bringing their slaves into any state of the Confederacy or to interfere with the property rights of slave owners traveling between different parts of the Confederacy. In contrast with the secular 18th-century Enlightenment language of the United States Constitution, the Confederate Constitution overtly asked God's blessing ("invoking the favor of Almighty God").

The Constitution provided for a President of the Confederate States of America, elected to serve a six-year term but without the possibility of re-election. Unlike the Union Constitution, the Confederate Constitution gave the president the ability to subject a bill to a line item veto, a power also held by some state governors. The Confederate Congress could overturn either the general or the line item vetoes with the same two-thirds majorities that are required in the U.S. Congress. In addition, appropriations not specifically requested by the executive branch required passage by a two-thirds vote in both houses of Congress. The only person to serve as president was Jefferson Davis, due to the Confederacy being defeated before the completion of his term.

Executive

The original Confederate Cabinet. L-R: Judah P. Benjamin, Stephen Mallory, Christopher Memminger, Alexander Stephens, LeRoy Pope Walker, Jefferson Davis, John H. Reagan and Robert Toombs.


Office	Name	Term

President	Jefferson Davis	1861-1865
Vice President	Alexander Stephens	1861-1865

Secretary of State	Robert Toombs	1861
	Robert M.T. Hunter	1861-1862
	Judah P. Benjamin	1862-1865
Secretary of the Treasury	Christopher Memminger	1861-1864
	George Trenholm	1864-1865
	John H. Reagan	1865
Secretary of War	Leroy Pope Walker	1861
	Judah P. Benjamin	1861-1862
	George W. Randolph	1862
	James Seddon	1862-1865
	John C. Breckinridge	1865
Secretary of the Navy	Stephen Mallory	1861-1865
Postmaster General	John H. Reagan	1861-1865
Attorney General	Judah P. Benjamin	1861
	Thomas Bragg	1861-1862
	Thomas H. Watts	1862-1863
	George Davis	1864-1865

Legislative

Main article: Confederate Congress

As its legislative branch, the Confederate States of America instituted the Confederate Congress. Like the United States Congress, the Confederate Congress consisted of two houses:

the Confederate Senate, whose membership included two senators from each state (and chosen by the state legislature)
the Confederate House of Representatives, with members popularly elected by properly enfranchised residents of the individual states

Provisional Congress
For the first year, the unicameral Provisional Confederate Congress functioned as the Confederacy's legislative branch.

President of the Provisional Congress

Howell Cobb, Sr. of Georgia — February 4, 1861-February 17, 1862

Presidents pro tempore of the Provisional Congress

Robert Woodward Barnwell of South Carolina - February 4, 1861
Thomas Stanhope Bocock of Virginia - December 10-21, 1861 and January 7-8, 1862
Josiah Abigail Patterson Campbell of Mississippi - December 23-24, 1861 and January 6, 1862

Sessions of the Confederate Congress

Tribal Representatives to Confederate Congress

Elias Cornelius Boudinot 1862-65 - Cherokee
Samuel Benton Callahan Unknown years - Creek, Seminole
Burton Allen Holder 1864-1865 - Chickasaw
Robert McDonald Jones 1863-65 - Choctaw

Judicial

The Confederate Constitution outlined a judicial branch of the government, but the ongoing war and resistance from states-rights advocates, particularly on the question of whether it would have appellate jurisdiction over the state courts, prevented the creation or seating of the "Supreme Court of the Confederate States"; the state courts generally continued to operate as they had done, simply recognizing the CSA as the national government.^[47] Confederate district courts were authorized by Article III, Section 1, of the CSA Constitution,^[48] and President Davis appointed judges within the individual states of the Confederate States of America.^[48] In many cases, the same US Federal District Judges were appointed as Confederate States District Judges. Confederate district courts began reopening in the spring of 1861 handling many of the same type cases as had been done before. Prize cases, in which Union ships were captured by the Confederate Navy or raiders and sold through court proceedings, were heard until the blockade of southern ports made this impossible. After a Sequestration Act was passed by the Confederate Congress, the Confederate district courts heard many cases in which enemy aliens (typically Northern absentee landlords owning property in the South) had their property sequestered (i.e., seized) by Confederate Receivers. When the matter came before the Confederate court, the property owner could not appear because he was unable to travel across the Mason-Dixon Line. Thus, the CSA District Attorney won the case by default, the property was typically sold, and the money used to further the Southern war effort. Eventually, because there was no CSA Supreme Court, sharp attorneys like South Carolina's Edward McCrady began filing appeals. This prevented their clients' property from being sold until a supreme court could be constituted to hear the appeal, which never occurred.^[48] Where Federal troops gained control over parts of the Confederacy and re-established civilian government, U.S. district courts sometimes resumed jurisdiction.^[49]

Supreme Court - not established.

District Courts - judges

Alabama William G. Jones 1861-1865
Arkansas Daniel Ringo 1861-1865
Florida Jesse J. Finley 1861-1862
Georgia Henry R. Jackson 1861, Edward J. Harden 1861-1865
Louisiana Edwin Warren Moise 1861-1865
Mississippi Alexander Mosby Clayton 1861-1865
North Carolina Asa Biggs 1861-1865
South Carolina Andrew G. Magrath 1861-1864, Benjamin F. Perry 1865
Tennessee West H. Humphreys 1861-1865
Texas-East William Pinckney Hill 1861-1865
Texas-West Thomas J. Devine 1861-1865
Virginia-East James D. Halyburton 1861-1865
Virginia-West John W. Brockenbrough 1861-1865

Civil liberties

The Confederacy actively used the military to arrest people suspected of loyalty to the United States. Historian Mark Neely found 2,700 names of men arrested and estimated a much larger total. The CSA arrested suspects at about the same rate as the Union arrested Confederate loyalists. Neely concludes:

“

The Confederate citizen was not any freer than the Union citizen — and perhaps no less likely to be arrested by military authorities. In fact, the Confederate citizen may have been in some ways less free than his Northern counterpart. For example, freedom to travel within the Confederate states was severely limited by a domestic passport system.^[50]

”

Capital

Virginia State House, which served as the last Confederate Capitol building

Montgomery, Alabama served as the capital of the Confederate States of America from February 4 until May 29, 1861. The naming of Richmond, Virginia as the new capital took place on May 30, 1861. Shortly before the end of the war, the Confederate government evacuated Richmond, planning to relocate farther south. Little came of these plans before Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. Danville, Virginia, served as the last capital of the Confederate States of America, from April 3 to April 10, 1865.

Financial instruments

Both the individual Confederate states and (later) the Confederate government printed Confederate States of America dollars as paper currency, much of it signed by the Treasurer Edward C. Elmore. During the course of the war, these severely depreciated, eventually becoming worthless. Many bills still exist, although in recent years copies have proliferated.

The Treasury also issued paper bonds in large numbers, and the Post Office produced a considerable number of postage stamps; both stamps and bonds (and especially bond coupons) remain readily available. The philatelic market regards as far more valuable the stamps placed on envelopes that were actually used during the war.

At the time of their secession, the states (and later the Confederate government) took over the national mints in their territories: the Charlotte Mint in North Carolina, the Dahlonega Mint in Georgia, and the New Orleans Mint in Louisiana. During 1861, the first two produced small amounts of gold coinage, the latter half dollars. Based on current dies on hand, these issues remain indistinguishable from those minted by the Union.

Also in 1861 plans originated to produce Confederate coins. The New Orleans Mint produced dies and four specimen half dollars, but a lack of bullion prevented any further minting. A jeweler in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, manufactured a dozen pennies under contract, but did not deliver them for fear of arrest. Over the years copies of both denominations have appeared. More details and pictures of the original issues appear in A Guide Book of United States Coins.

International diplomacy

Once the war with the United States began, the Confederacy pinned its hopes for survival on military intervention by Britain and France. The United States realized this as well and made it clear that diplomatic recognition of the Confederacy meant war with the United States — and the cutting off of food shipments into Britain. The Confederates who had believed that "cotton is king"^[51] — that is, Britain had to support the Confederacy to obtain cotton — proved mistaken.^[52] The British instead focused more heavily on cotton and textiles produced in India, Brazil or in Russia,^[53] with the French also increasing Algerian production.^[53] The early years of the war did not see strong international demand for textiles, and hence for cotton.^[54] In time, the war and Union blockade of the South caused economic hardship in textile-producing areas of England such as Lancashire, which depended heavily on cotton exports from the seceding states;^[55] however, abolitionist sentiment among English workers ran counter to this economic interest in Confederate victory.^[56]

While the Confederate government sent repeated delegations to Europe, historians do not give the CSA high marks for diplomatic skills.^{[citation needed]} James M. Mason went to London as Confederate minister to Queen Victoria, and John Slidell traveled to Paris as minister to Napoleon III. Each succeeded in obtaining private meetings with high British and French officials respectively, but neither secured official recognition for the Confederacy. Britain and the United States came dangerously close to war during the Trent Affair (when the U.S. Navy illegally seized two Confederate agents traveling on a British ship in late 1861), and it seemed possible that the Confederacy would see its much desired recognition.^[57] When Lincoln released the two, however, tensions cooled, and in the end the episode did not aid the Confederate cause.^[58]

Throughout the early years of the war, British foreign secretary Lord Russell, Napoleon III, and, to a lesser extent, British Prime Minister Lord Palmerston, showed interest in the idea of recognition of the Confederacy, or at least of offering a mediation. Recognition meant certain war with the United States, loss of American grain, loss of exports to the United States, loss of huge investments in American securities, possible war in British North American colonies, much higher taxes, many lives lost and a severe threat to the entire British merchant marine, in exchange for the possibility of some cotton^{[citation needed]}^{[original research?]}. Many party leaders and the public wanted no war with such high costs and meager benefits. Recognition was considered following the Second Battle of Bull Run when the British government was preparing to mediate in the conflict, but the Union victory at the Battle of Antietam and Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, combined with internal opposition, caused the government to back away.

In November 1863, Confederate diplomat A. Dudley Mann met Pope Pius IX and received a letter addressed "to the Illustrious and Honorable Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America". Mann, in his dispatch to Richmond, interpreted the letter as "a positive recognition of our Government", and some have mistakenly viewed it as a de facto recognition of the C.S.A. Confederate Secretary of State Judah P. Benjamin, however, interpreted it as "a mere inferential recognition, unconnected with political action or the regular establishment of diplomatic relations" and thus did not assign it the weight of formal recognition.^[59] For the remainder of the war, Confederate commissioners continued meeting with Cardinal Antonelli, the Vatican Secretary of State. In 1864, Catholic Bishop Patrick N. Lynch of Charleston traveled to the Vatican with an authorization from Jefferson Davis to represent the Confederacy before the Holy See. That same year, Davis sent Duncan Kenner to France and England with an offer to emancipate Southern slaves in exchange for recognition of the Confederacy from France and Great Britain.^[60] This attempt proved unsuccessful.

No country appointed any diplomat officially to the Confederacy, but several maintained their consuls in the South whom they had appointed before the outbreak of war. In 1861, Ernst Raven applied for approval as the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha consul, but he held citizenship of Texas and no evidence exists that officials in Saxe-Coburg and Gotha knew of his actions. In 1863, the Confederacy expelled all foreign consuls (all of them British or French diplomats) for advising their subjects to refuse to serve in combat against the U.S.

Throughout the war, most European powers adopted a policy of neutrality, meeting informally with Confederate diplomats but withholding diplomatic recognition. None ever sent an ambassador or an official delegation to Richmond. However, they applied principles of international law that recognized the Union and Confederate sides as belligerents. Both Confederate and Union agents were allowed to work openly in British North America. In Hamilton, Bermuda a Confederate agent openly worked to help blockade runners. Some state governments in northern Mexico negotiated local agreements to cover trade on the Texas border.^[61]

"Died of states' rights"

Historian Frank Lawrence Owsley argued that the Confederacy "died of states' rights."^[62] According to Owsley, strong-willed governors and state legislatures in the South refused to give the central government the soldiers and money it needed because they feared that Richmond would encroach on the rights of the states. Georgia's governor Joseph Brown warned that he saw the signs of a deep-laid conspiracy on the part of Jefferson Davis to destroy states' rights and individual liberty. Brown declaimed: "Almost every act of usurpation of power, or of bad faith, has been conceived, brought forth and nurtured in secret session." He saw granting the Confederate government the power to draft soldiers as the "essence of military despotism."^[63] In 1863 governor Pendleton Murrah of Texas insisted that his State needed Texas troops for self-defense (against Indians or against a threatened Union invasion), and refused to send them East.^[64] Zebulon Vance, the governor of North Carolina, had a reputation for hostility to Davis and to his demands. North Carolina showed intense opposition to conscription, resulting in very poor results for recruiting. Governor Vance's faith in states' rights drove him into a stubborn opposition.^[65]

Historian George Rable wrote:

For Alexander Stephens, any accomodation would only weaken the republic, and he therefore had no choice but to break publicly with the Confederate administration and the president. In an extraordinary three-hour speech to the legislature on the evening of March 16, the vice-president carefully outlined his position. Allowing Davis to make "arbitrary arrests" and to draft state officials conferred on him more power than the English Parliament had ever bestowed on the king. History proved the dangers of such unchecked authority.
....The Confederate government intended to suppress the peace meetings in North Carolina, he warned, and "put a muzzle upon certain presses" (i.e., the Raleigh Standard) in order to control elections in that state.^[66]

Echoing Patrick Henry's "give me liberty or give me death" Stephens warned the Southerners they should never view liberty as "subordinate to independence" because the cry of "independence first and liberty second" was a "fatal delusion". As Rable concludes, "For Stephens, the essence of patriotism, the heart of the Confederate cause, rested on an unyielding commitment to traditional rights. In his idealist vision of politics, military necessity, pragmatism, and compromise meant nothing".^[67]

The survival of the Confederacy depended on a strong base of civilians and soldiers devoted to victory. The soldiers performed well, though increasing numbers deserted in the last year of fighting, and the Confederacy never succeeded in replacing casualties as the Union could. The civilians, although enthusiastic in 1861-62 seem to have lost faith in the nation's future by 1864, and instead looked to protect their homes and communities. As Rable explains, "As the Confederacy shrank, citizens' sense of the cause more than ever narrowed to their own states and communities. This contraction of civic vision was more than a crabbed libertarianism; it represented an increasingly widespread disillusionment with the Confederate experiment."^[68]

Relations with the United States

During the four years of its existence, the Confederate States of America asserted its independence and appointed dozens of diplomatic agents abroad. The United States government, by contrast, regarded the Southern states as states in rebellion and refused any formal recognition of their status. Thus, U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward issued formal instructions to Charles Francis Adams, the newly-appointed minister to Great Britain:

“

You will indulge in no expressions of harshness or disrespect, or even impatience concerning the seceding States, their agents, or their people. But you will, on the contrary, all the while remember that those States are now, as they always heretofore have been, and, notwithstanding their temporary self-delusion, they must always continue to be, equal and honored members of this Federal Union, and that their citizens throughout all political misunderstandings and alienations, still are and always must be our kindred and countrymen.^[69]

”

However, if the British seemed inclined to recognize the Confederacy, or even waver in that regard, they would receive a sharp warning, with a strong hint of war:

“

[if Britain is] tolerating the application of the so-called seceding States, or wavering about it, you will not leave them to suppose for a moment that they can grant that application and remain friends with the United States. You may even assure them promptly, in that case, that if they determine to recognize, they may at the same time prepare to enter into alliance with the enemies of this republic.^[70]

”

The Confederate Congress responded to the Battle of Fort Sumter by formally declaring war on the United States in May 1861 — calling it "The War between the Confederate States of America and the United States of America".^[71] The Union government never declared war, but conducted its military efforts under a proclamation of blockade and rebellion. After the war, the U.S. Congress readmitted representation from the southern states. Mid-war negotiations between the two sides occurred without formal political recognition, though the laws of war governed military relationships.

Four years after the war, in 1869, the United States Supreme Court in Texas v. White ruled Texas' secession unconstitutional and legally null. The court's opinion was authored by Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase. Jefferson Davis, former president of the Confederacy, and Alexander Stephens, its former vice-president, both penned arguments in favor of secession's legality, most notably Davis' The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government. The court did allow some possibility of separation from the Union "through revolution or through consent of the States."^[72]^[73]

Confederate flags

Main article: Flags of the Confederate States of America


1st National Flag "Stars and Bars"	2nd National Flag "Stainless Banner"	3rd National Flag "Blood Stained Banner"	CSA Naval Jack 1861-1863

CSA Naval Jack 1863-1865	Battle Flag "Southern Cross"	"Bonnie Blue Flag" Unofficial Southern Flag

The first official flag of the Confederate States of America, called the "Stars and Bars", had seven stars, representing the seven states that initially formed the Confederacy. It sometimes proved difficult to distinguish the Stars and Bars from the Union flag under battle conditions, so the flag was changed^{[by whom?]} to the "Stainless Banner". The Stainless Banner, known as the "Southern Cross" (or Saint Andrew's Cross^{[citation needed]}), became the symbol more commonly used in military operations. The Southern Cross had 13 stars, adding the four states that joined the Confederacy after Fort Sumter, and the two divided states of Kentucky and Missouri. Due to similarities between the "Stainless Banner" and a white flag, a red stripe was appended vertically to the end of the flag, creating the third of the national flags.

Because of its depiction in 20th-century^{[citation needed]} popular media, many people associate the "Southern Cross" flag with the Confederacy today^[update]. The actual "Southern Cross" flag had a square shape, while the Naval Jack (also used by the Army of Tennessee) had a rectangular form but used a lighter shade of blue. Popular media often depict an amalgam, taking the rectangular shape of the Naval Jack and the darker blue of the "Southern Cross" battle flag.

Geography

The Confederate States of America claimed a total of 2,919 miles (4,698 km) of coastline, thus a large part of its territory lay on the seacoast with level and often sandy or marshy ground. Most of the interior portion consisted of arable farmland, though much was also hilly and mountainous, and the far western territories were deserts. The lower reaches of the Mississippi River bisected the country, with the western half often referred to as the Trans-Mississippi. The highest point (excluding Arizona and New Mexico) was Guadalupe Peak in Texas at 8,750 feet (2,667 m).

Map of the states and territories claimed by the Confederate States of America

Climate

Much of the area claimed by the Confederate States of America had a humid subtropical climate with mild winters and long, hot, humid summers. The climate and terrain varied to semi-arid steppe and arid desert west of longitude 96 degrees west. The subtropical climate made winters mild but allowed infectious diseases to flourish. Consequently, disease killed more soldiers than died in combat.^[74]

River system

In peacetime, the vast system of navigable rivers allowed for cheap and easy transportation of farm products. The railroad system, built as a supplement, tied plantation areas to the nearest river or seaport. The vast geography of the Confederacy made logistics difficult for the Union, and the Union armies assigned many of their soldiers to garrison captured areas and to protect rail lines. Nevertheless, the Union Navy had seized most of the navigable rivers by 1862, making its own logistics easy and Confederate movements difficult. After the fall of Vicksburg in July 1863, it became impossible for Confederate units to cross the Mississippi: Union gunboats constantly patrolled the river. The South thus lost the use of its western regions.

Railroad system

Main article: Confederate railroads in the American Civil War

The outbreak of war had a depressing effect on the economic fortunes of the railroad system in Confederate territory. The hoarding of the cotton crop in an attempt to entice European intervention left railroads bereft of their main source of income.^[75] Many had to lay off employees, and in particular, let go skilled technicians and engineers.^[75] For the early years of the war, the Confederate government had a hands-off approach to the railroads. Only in mid-1863 did the Confederate government initiate an overall policy, and it was confined solely to aiding the war effort.^[76] With the legislation of impressment the same year, railroads and their rolling stock came under the de facto control of the military.

In the last year before the end of the war, the Confederate railroad system stood permanently on the verge of collapse. The impressment policy of Quarter-master's ran the rails ragged; feeder lines would be scrapped in order to lay down replacement steel for trunk lines, and the continual use of rolling stock wore them down faster than they could be replaced.^[77]

Rural/urban configuration

The area claimed by the Confederate States of America consisted overwhelmingly of rural land. Few urban areas had populations of more than 1,000 — the typical county seat had a population of fewer than 500 people. Cities occurred rarely. Of the twenty largest U.S. cities in the 1860 census, only New Orleans lay in Confederate territory^[78] — and the Union captured New Orleans in 1862. Only 13 Confederate-controlled cities ranked among the top 100 U.S. cities in 1860, most of them ports whose economic activities vanished or suffered severely in the Union blockade. The population of Richmond swelled after it became the national capital, reaching an estimated 128,000 in 1864 (Dabney 1990:182). Other large Southern cities (Baltimore, St. Louis, Louisville, and Washington, as well as Wheeling, West Virginia, and Alexandria, Virginia) never came under the control of the Confederate government.

The cities of the Confederacy included most prominently in order of size of population:

#	City	1860 population	1860 U.S. rank	Return to U.S. control
1.	New Orleans, Louisiana	168,675	6	1862
2.	Charleston, South Carolina	40,522	22	1865
3.	Richmond, Virginia	37,910	25	1865
4.	Mobile, Alabama	29,258	27	1865
5.	Memphis, Tennessee	22,623	38	1862
6.	Savannah, Georgia	22,292	41	1864
7.	Petersburg, Virginia	18,266	50	1865
8.	Nashville, Tennessee	16,988	54	1862
9.	Norfolk, Virginia	14,620	61	1862
10.	Augusta, Georgia	12,493	77	1865
11.	Columbus, Georgia	9,621	97	1865
12.	Atlanta, Georgia	9,554	99	1864
13.	Wilmington, North Carolina	9,553	100	1865

Economy

Main article: Economy of the Confederate States of America

The Confederacy started its existence as an agrarian economy with exports, to a world market, of cotton, and, to a lesser extent, tobacco and sugarcane. Local food production included grains, hogs, cattle, and gardens. The 11 states produced $155 million in manufactured goods in 1860, chiefly from local grist-mills, and lumber, processed tobacco, cotton goods and naval stores such as turpentine. By the 1830s, the 11 states produced more cotton than all of the other countries in the world combined.

The CSA adopted a low tariff of 15 per cent, but imposed it on all imports from other countries, including the Union states.^[79] The tariff mattered little; the Union blockade minimized commercial traffic through the Confederacy's ports, and very few people paid taxes on goods smuggled from the Union states. The government collected about $3.5 million in tariff revenue from the start of their war against the Union to late 1864. The lack of adequate financial resources led the Confederacy to finance the war through printing money, which led to high inflation. The requirements of its military encouraged the Confederate government to take a dirigiste-style approach to industrialization.^[80] But such efforts faced setbacks: Union raids and in particular Sherman's scorched-earth campaigning destroyed much economic infrastructure.^[81]

Demographics

The United States Census of 1860^[82] gives a picture of the overall 1860 population of the areas that joined the Confederacy. Note that population-numbers exclude non-assimilated Indian tribes.

State	Total Population	Total # of Slaves	Total # of Households	Total Free Population	Total #^[83] Slaveholders	% of Free Population Owning Slaves^[84]	Slaves as % of Population	Total free colored
Alabama	964,201	435,080	96,603	529,121	33,730	6%	45%	2,690
Arkansas	435,450	111,115	57,244	324,335	11,481	4%	26%	144
Florida	140,424	61,745	15,090	78,679	5,152	7%	44%	932
Georgia	1,057,286	462,198	109,919	595,088	41,084	7%	44%	3,500
Louisiana	708,002	331,726	74,725	376,276	22,033	6%	47%	18,647
Mississippi	791,305	436,631	63,015	354,674	30,943	9%	55%	773
North Carolina	992,622	331,059	125,090	661,563	34,658	5%	33%	30,463
South Carolina	703,708	402,406	58,642	301,302	26,701	9%	57%	9,914
Tennessee	1,109,801	275,719	149,335	834,082	36,844	4%	25%	7,300
Texas	604,215	182,566	76,781	421,649	21,878	5%	30%	355
Virginia	1,596,318	490,865	201,523	1,105,453	52,128	5%	31%	58,042
Total	9,103,332	3,521,110	1,027,967	5,582,222	316,632	6%	39%	132,760

(Figures for Virginia include the future West Virginia.)

Age structure	0–14 years	15–59 years	60 years and over
White males	43%	52%	4%
White females	44%	52%	4%
Male slaves	44%	51%	4%
Female slaves	45%	51%	3%
Free black males	45%	50%	5%
Free black females	40%	54%	6%
Total population	44%	52%	4%

(Rows may not total to 100% due to rounding)

In 1860 the areas that later formed the eleven Confederate States (and including the future West Virginia) had 132,760 (1.46%) free blacks. Males made up 49.2% of the total population and females 50.8% (whites: 48.60% male, 51.40% female; slaves: 50.15% male, 49.85% female; free blacks: 47.43% male, 52.57% female).^[85]

Armed forces

Main article: Military of the Confederate States of America

Navy Jack of the CSA

The military armed forces of the Confederacy comprised three branches:

The Confederate military leadership included many veterans from the United States Army and United States Navy who had resigned their Federal commissions and had won appointment to senior positions in the Confederate armed forces. Many had served in the Mexican-American War (including Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis), but others had little or no military experience (such as Leonidas Polk, who had attended West Point but did not graduate.) The Confederate officer corps consisted in part of young men from slave-owning families, but many came from non-owners. The Confederacy appointed junior and field grade officers by election from the enlisted ranks. Although no Army service academy was established for the Confederacy, many colleges of the South (such as the The Citadel and Virginia Military Institute) maintained cadet corps that were seen as a training ground for Confederate military leadership. A naval academy was established at Drewry’s Bluff, Virginia^[86] in 1863, but no midshipmen had graduated by the time the Confederacy collapsed.

The soldiers of the Confederate armed forces consisted mainly of white males aged between sixteen and twenty-eight.^{[citation needed]} The Confederacy adopted conscription in 1862. Many thousands of slaves served as laborers, cooks, and pioneers. Some freed blacks and men of color served in local state militia units of the Confederacy, primarily in Louisiana and South Carolina, but their officers deployed them for "local defense, not combat."^[87] Depleted by casualties and desertions, the military suffered chronic manpower shortages. In the spring of 1865, the Confederate Congress, influenced by the public support by General Lee, approved the recruitment of black infantry units. Contrary to Lee’s and Davis’s recommendations, the Congress refused “to guarantee the freedom of black volunteers.” No more than two hundred black troops were ever raised.^[88]

Military leaders

Military leaders of the Confederacy (with their state or country of birth and highest rank)^[89] included:

General Robert E. Lee: for many, the face of the Confederate army

Robert E. Lee (Virginia) - General and General-in-Chief (1865)
Albert Sidney Johnston (Kentucky) - General
Joseph E. Johnston (Virginia) - General
Braxton Bragg (North Carolina) - General
P.G.T. Beauregard (Louisiana) - General
Richard S. Ewell (Virginia) - Lieutenant General
Samuel Cooper (New York) - General (Adjutant General and highest ranking general in the Army); not in combat
James Longstreet (South Carolina) - Lieutenant General
Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson (Virginia now West Virginia)- Lieutenant General
John Hunt Morgan (Kentucky) - Brigadier General
A.P. Hill (Virginia) - Lieutenant General
John Bell Hood (Kentucky) - Lieutenant General (temporary General)
Wade Hampton III (South Carolina) - Lieutenant General
Nathan Bedford Forrest (Tennessee) - Lieutenant General
John Singleton Mosby, the "Grey Ghost of the Confederacy" (Virginia) - Colonel
J.E.B. Stuart (Virginia) - Major General
Edward Porter Alexander (Georgia) - Brigadier General
Franklin Buchanan (Maryland) - Admiral
Raphael Semmes (Maryland) - Rear Admiral
Stand Watie (Georgia) - Brigadier General (last to surrender)
Leonidas Polk (North Carolina) - Lieutenant General
Sterling Price (Virginia) - Major General
Jubal Anderson Early (Virginia) - Lieutenant General
Richard Taylor (Kentucky) - Lieutenant General (Son of U.S. President Zachary Taylor)
Lloyd J. Beall (South Carolina) - Colonel - Commandant of the Confederate States Marine Corps
Stephen Dodson Ramseur (North Carolina) Major General
Camille Armand Jules Marie, Prince de Polignac (France) Major General
John Austin Wharton (Tennessee) Major General
Thomas L. Rosser (Virginia) Major General
Patrick Cleburne (Ireland) Major General

For more details on this topic, see History of Confederate States Army Generals.

Table of CSA states

State	Secession ordinance	Admitted C.S.A.	Under predominant Union control	Readmitted to representation in Congress
South Carolina	December 20, 1860	February 8, 1861	1865	July 9, 1868
Mississippi	January 9, 1861	February 8, 1861	1863	February 23, 1870
Florida	January 10, 1861	February 8, 1861	1865	June 25, 1868
Alabama	January 11, 1861	February 8, 1861	1865	July 13, 1868
Georgia	January 19, 1861	February 8, 1861	1865	1st Date July 21, 1868; 2nd Date July 15, 1870
Louisiana	January 26, 1861	February 8, 1861	1863	July 9, 1868
Texas	February 1, 1861	March 2, 1861	1865	March 30, 1870
Virginia	April 17, 1861	May 7, 1861	1865; (1862/63 for West Virginia)	January 26, 1870
Arkansas	May 6, 1861	May 18, 1861	1864	June 22, 1868
North Carolina	May 20, 1861	May 21, 1861	1865	July 4, 1868
Tennessee	June 8, 1861	July 2, 1861	1863	July 24, 1866
Missouri (exiled government)	October 31, 1861	November 28, 1861	1861	Unionist govt. appointed by Missouri Constitutional Convention 1861
Kentucky (Russellville Convention)	November 20, 1861	December 10, 1861	1861	Elected Union and unelected rump Confederate governments from 1861
Arizona Territory (Mesilla government)	March 16, 1861	February 14, 1862	1862	(Not a state)

References

Bowman, John S. (ed), The Civil War Almanac, New York: Bison Books, 1983
Eicher, John H., & Eicher, David J., Civil War High Commands, Stanford University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8047-3641-3
Wilentz, Sean, The Rise of American Democracy, W.W. Norton & Co., ISBN 0-393-32921-6

Bibliography

Cooper, William J. Jr. Jefferson Davis, American. (2000)
Coski, John. The Confederate Battle Flag. (2005)
Crofts, Daniel W. Reluctant Confederates: Upper South Unionists in the Secession Crisis. (1989) ISBN 0-8078-1809-7.
Current, Richard N., ed. Encyclopedia of the Confederacy (4 vol), 1993. 1900 pages, articles by scholars.
Davis, William C. "A Government of Our Own". (1994) ISBN 0-8071-2177-0
Downing, David C. A South Divided: Portraits of Dissent in the Confederacy. Nashville: Cumberland House, 2007. ISBN 978-1-58182-587-9
Faust, Drew Gilpin. The Creation of Confederate Nationalism: Ideology and Identity in the Civil War South. (1988)
Faust, Patricia L. ed, Historical Times Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Civil War, 1986
Goen, C.C. “Broken Churches, Broken Nation: Regional Religion and North-South Alienation in Antebellum America” Church History, Vol. 52, No.1 (March, 1983) pp. 21–35 JSTOR
Gallagher, Gary W. The Confederate War (1997) ISBN 0-674-16055-X
Heidler, David S., et al. Encyclopedia of the American Civil War: A Political, Social, and Military History, 2002 2400 pages (ISBN 0-393-04758-X)
Kull, Irving Stoddard “Presbyterian Attitudes toward Slavery” Church History, Vol. 7, No. 2, (June 1938), pp. 101–114 JSTOR
Levine, Bruce Confederate Emancipation. (2006)
Levine, Bruce Half Slave and Half Free: The Roots of Civil War (1992) ISBN 0809053527
McPherson, James M. Battle Cry of Freedom. (1988)
Rubin, Sarah Anne A Shattered Nation: The Rise & Fall of the Confederacy 1861-1868 (2005)
Sinha, Manish The Counterrevolution of Slavery: Politics and Ideology in Antebellum South Carolina (2000) ISBN 0-8078-2571-9
Smylie, James H. "A Brief History of the Presbyterians" (1996)
Stampp, Kenneth M. The Peculiar Institution (1956) 1989 Edition ISBN 0-679-72307-2
Woodworth, Steven E. ed. The American Civil War: A Handbook of Literature and Research, 1996 750 pages of historiography and bibliography

Economic and social history

see Economy of the Confederate States of America

Black, Robert C., III. The Railroads of the Confederacy, 1988.
Clinton, Catherine, and Silber, Nina, eds. Divided Houses: Gender and the Civil War, 1992
Dabney, Virginius Richmond: The Story of a City. Charlottesville: The University of Virginia Press, 1990 ISBN 0-8139-1274-1
Faust, Drew Gilpin Mothers of Invention: Women of the Slaveholding South in the American Civil War, 1996
Faust, Drew Gilpin. The Creation of Confederate Nationalism: Ideology and Identity in the Civil War South, 1988.
Grimsley, Mark The Hard Hand of War: Union Military Policy toward Southern Civilians, 1861-1865, 1995
Lentz, Perry Carlton Our Missing Epic: A Study in the Novels about the American Civil War, 1970
Massey, Mary Elizabeth Bonnet Brigades: American Women and the Civil War, 1966
Massey, Mary Elizabeth Refugee Life in the Confederacy, 1964
Rable, George C. Civil Wars: Women and the Crisis of Southern Nationalism, 1989
Ramsdell, Charles. Behind the Lines in the Southern Confederacy, 1994.
Roark, James L. Masters without Slaves: Southern Planters in the Civil War and Reconstruction, 1977.
Rubin, Anne Sarah. A Shattered Nation: The Rise and Fall of the Confederacy, 1861-1868, 2005 A cultural study of Confederates' self images
Thomas, Emory M. The Confederacy as a Revolutionary Experience, 1992
Wiley, Bell Irwin Confederate Women, 1975
Wiley, Bell Irwin The Plain People of the Confederacy, 1944
Woodward, C. Vann, ed. Mary Chesnut's Civil War, 1981

Politics

Alexander, Thomas B., and Beringer, Richard E. The Anatomy of the Confederate Congress: A Study of the Influences of Member Characteristics on Legislative Voting Behavior, 1861-1865, 1972
Boritt, Gabor S., et al., Why the Confederacy Lost, 1992
Cooper, William J, Jefferson Davis, American, 2000 Standard biography
Coulter, E. Merton The Confederate States of America, 1861-1865, 1950
William C. Davis (2003). Look Away! A History of the Confederate States of America. New York: Free Press. ISBN 0-684-86585-8.
Eaton, Clement A History of the Southern Confederacy, 1954
Eckenrode, H. J., Jefferson Davis: President of the South, 1923
Gallgher, Gary W., The Confederate War, 1999
Neely, Mark E., Jr., Confederate Bastille: Jefferson Davis and Civil Liberties, 1993
Rembert, W. Patrick Jefferson Davis and His Cabinet, 1944.
Rable, George C., The Confederate Republic: A Revolution against Politics, 1994
Roland, Charles P. The Confederacy, 1960 brief
Thomas, Emory M. Confederate Nation: 1861-1865, 1979 Standard political-economic-social history
Wakelyn, Jon L. Biographical Dictionary of the Confederacy Greenwood Press ISBN 0-8371-6124-X
Williams, William M. Justice in Grey: A History of the Judicial System of the Confederate States of America, 1941
Yearns, Wilfred Buck The Confederate Congress, 1960

Primary sources

Carter, Susan B., ed. The Historical Statistics of the United States: Millennial Edition (5 vols), 2006
Davis, Jefferson, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government (2 vols), 1881.
Harwell, Richard B., The Confederate Reader (1957)
Jones, John B. A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, edited by Howard Swiggert, [1935] 1993. 2 vols.
Richardson, James D., ed. A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Confederacy, Including the Diplomatic Correspondence 1861-1865, 2 volumes, 1906.
Yearns, W. Buck and Barret, John G.,eds. North Carolina Civil War Documentary, 1980.
Confederate official government documents major online collection of complete texts in HTML format, from University of North Carolina
Journal of the Congress of the Confederate States of America, 1861-1865 (7 vols), 1904. Available online at the Library of Congress^[90]

Notes

^ Gallagher p. 157. Gallagher notes, "The Confederacy capitulated in the spring of 1865 because northern armies had demonstrated their ability to crush organized southern military resistance. Soldiers laid down their arms at Appomattox and Durham Station when brought to bay by imposing Federal forces under the resolute command of U. S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman. Civilians who had maintained faith in their defenders despite material hardship and social disruption similarly recognized that the end had come. ... [M]ost Confederates knew that as a people they had expended blood and treasure in profusion before ultimately collapsing in the face of northern power sternly applied."
^ "Preventing Diplomatic Recognition of the Confederacy, 1861-1865". U.S. Department of State. http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/time/cw/17609.htm.
^ McPherson, James M. (2007). This mighty scourge: perspectives on the Civil War. Oxford University Press US. p. 65. ISBN 0195313666. http://books.google.ca/books?id=bJEINL6bakYC&pg=PA65&lpg=PA65&dq=confederacy+recognition&source=bl&ots=yVUvW5CZNx&sig=SrzZL19wEkbHwpI1rZAmqzjs6mA&hl=en&ei=tATIScOdGZKmsAPQzJDtBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=2&ct=result#PPA66,M1.
^ The text of South Carolina's Ordinance of Secession.
^ South Carolina documents including signatories
^ The text of Mississippi's Ordinance of Secession.
^ The text of Florida's Ordinance of Secession.
^ The text of Alabama's Ordinance of Secession.
^ The text of Georgia's Ordinance of Secession.
^ The text of Louisiana's Ordinance of Secession.
^ The text of Texas' Ordinance of Secession.
^ Some southern unionists blamed Lincoln's call for troops as the precipitating event for the second wave of secessions. Historian James McPherson argues that such claims have "a self-serving quality" and regards them as misleading. He wrote:

As the telegraph chattered reports of the attack on Sumter April 12 and its surrender next day, huge crowds poured into the streets of Richmond, Raleigh, Nashville, and other upper South cities to celebrate this victory over the Yankees. These crowds waved Confederate flags and cheered the glorious cause of southern independence. They demanded that their own states join the cause. Scores of demonstrations took place from April 12 to 14, before Lincoln issued his call for troops. Many conditional unionists were swept along by this powerful tide of southern nationalism; others were cowed into silence.

— McPherson p. 278

Historian Daniel W. Crofts disagrees with McPherson. Crofts wrote:

The bombardment of Fort Sumter, by itself, did not destroy Unionist majorities in the upper South. Because only three days elapsed before Lincoln issued the proclamation, the two events viewed retrospectively, appear almost simultaneous. Nevertheless, close examination of contemporary evidence ... shows that the proclamation had a far more decisive impact.

—Crofts p. 336

Crofts further noted that,

Many concluded ... that Lincoln had deliberately chosen 'to drive off all the Slave states, in order to make war on them and annihilate slavery.'

— Crofts pp. 337-338, quoting the North Carolina politician Jonathan Worth (1802-1869).
^ The text of Virginia's Ordinance of Secession. Virginia seceded in two steps, first by secession convention vote on April 17, 1861, and then by ratification of this by a popular vote conducted on May 23, 1861. A Unionist Restored government of Virginia also operated. Virginia did not turn over its military to the Confederate States until June 8, 1861. The Commonwealth of Virginia ratified the Constitution of the Confederate States on June 19, 1861.
^ The text of Arkansas' Ordinance of Secession.
^ The text of Tennessee's Ordinance of Secession.
^ The Tennessee legislature ratified an agreement to enter a military league with the Confederate States on May 7, 1861. Tennessee voters approved the agreement on June 8, 1861.
^ The text of North Carolina's Ordinance of Secession.
^ Missouri's Ordinance of Secession.
^ R. Curry, "A House Divided".
^ Weigley, Russell Frank, A Great Civil War, W.W. Norton, 2003, pg. 55
^ ""Marx and Engels on the American Civil War", Army of the Cumberland and George H. Thomas source page.
^ "Background of the Confederate States Constitution", The American Civil War Home Page.
^ History of Arizona vol. 2 by Thomas Edwin Farish (1915) [1].
^ Bowman, p. 48.
^ University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Documenting the American South collection, Confederate States of America War Department, Communication From the Secretary of War, February 4th, 1863.
^ This Day in History, July 12, 1861 Confederacy signs treaties with Choctaw and Chickasaw Tribes.
^ Declaration by the People of the Cherokee Nation of the Causes Which Have Impelled Them to Unite Their Fortunes With Those of the Confederate States of America.
^ Faust, Drew Gilpin (1988). The creation of Confederate nationalism : ideology and identity in the Civil War South. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. p. 59. ISBN 0807115096.
^ McPherson pp. 232-233.
^ The text of the Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union.
^ The text of A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union.
^ The text of Georgia's secession declaration.
^ The text of A Declaration of the Causes which Impel the State of Texas to Secede from the Federal Union.
^ McPherson pg. 244. The text of Alexander Stephens' "Cornerstone Speech".
^ Cooper p. xv.
^ Cooper p. xiv.
^ Coski p. 23. Coski inserted the bracketed text. See also Corwin Amendment for additional context.
^ Levine (1992) p. 109. Stampp (1956) p. 157.
^ Levine (1992) p. 113.
^ Levine (1992) p. 112.
^ Stephens, Alexander H. (1870) (PDF) A Constitutional View of the Late War Between the States2p. 36 http://ia300043.us.archive.org/1/items/constitutionalview02steprich/constitutionalview02steprich.pdf "I maintain that it was inaugurated and begun, though no blow had been struck, when the hostile fleet, styled the 'Relief Squadron,' with eleven ships, carrying two hundred and eighty-five guns and two thousand four hundred men, was sent out from New York and Norfolk, with orders from the authorities at Washington, to reinforce Fort Sumter peaceably, if permitted 'but forcibly if they must'..."
^ ^a ^b Lincoln's proclamation calling for troops from the remaining states (bottom of page); Department of War details to States (top).
^ "Appomattox Court House Virginia — General Robert E. Lee Surrenders to General Ulysses S. Grant". americancivilwar.com. 2007. http://americancivilwar.com/appo.html. Retrieved 2009-05-02.
^ "Jefferson Davis Was Captured". USA.gov. 2007. http://www.americaslibrary.gov/cgi-bin/jb_date.cgi?day=10&month=05. Retrieved 2009-05-02.
^ John Baldwin (Author), Ron Powers (Author) (in ENGLISH). Last Flag Down: The Epic Journey of the Last Confederate Warship (May 6, 2008 ed.). Three Rivers Press. pp. 368. ISBN 0307236560.
^ Davis p. 248.
^ "Legal Materials on the Confederate States of America in the Schaffer Law Library", Albany Law School.
^ ^a ^b ^c [Moise, E. Warren, Rebellion in the Temple of Justice (iUniverse 2003)]
^ Records of District Courts of the United States, National Archives.
^ Neely 11, 16.
^ Henry Blumenthal Confederate Diplomacy: Popular Notions and International Realities The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 32, No. 2. (May, 1966), p. 152.
^ Henry Blumenthal Confederate Diplomacy: Popular Notions and International Realities The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 32, No. 2. (May, 1966), p. 155
^ ^a ^b Henry Blumenthal Confederate Diplomacy: Popular Notions and International Realities The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 32, No. 2. (May, 1966), p. 159.
^ Stanley Lebergott Why the South Lost: Commercial Purpose in the Confederacy, 1861-1865 The Journal of American History, Vol. 70, No. 1. (June, 1983), p. 61.
^ International Slavery Museum, Liverpool, UK.
^ See the text of the inscription on the Abraham Lincoln statue in Manchester, UK.
^ Henry Blumenthal Confederate Diplomacy: Popular Notions and International Realities p. 157.
^ Blumenthal, Henry (May 1966). "Confederate Diplomacy: Popular Notions and International Realities". The Journal of Southern History 32 (2). Footnote 20.
^ Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion, p. 1015.
^ Louisiana Department of Culture, Recreation, and Tourism's description of Kenner's diplomatic mission.
^ Wise, Stephen R., Lifeline of the Confederacy: Blockade Running During the Civil War, University of South Carolina Press, 1991, ISBN 0872497992, 9780872497993, p. 86.
^ Frank L. Owsley, State Rights in the Confederacy (Chicago, 1925).
^ Rable (1994) 257; however Wallace Hettle in The Peculiar Democracy: Southern Democrats in Peace and Civil War (2001) p. 158 says Owsley's "famous thesis... is overstated."
^ John Moretta; "Pendleton Murrah and States Rights in Civil War Texas," Civil War History, Vol. 45, 1999.
^ Albert Burton Moore, Conscription and Conflict in the Confederacy. (1924) p. 295.
^ Rable (1994) p. 258
^ Rable (1994) p. 259.
^ Rable (1994) p. 265.
^ William Seward to Charles Francis Adams, April 10, 1861 in Marion Mills Miller, Ed. Life And Works Of Abraham Lincoln (1907) Vol 6.
^ William Seward to Charles Francis Adams, April 10, 1861, in Marion Mills Miller (ed): Life And Works Of Abraham Lincoln (1907) Vol 6.
^ Moore, Frank, The Rebellion Record, Volume I, G.P. Putnam, 1861, Doc. 140, pp. 195-197.
^ Aleksandar Pavković, Peter Radan, Creating New States: Theory and Practice of Secession, p. 222, Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2007.
^ Texas v. White, 74 U.S. 700 (1868) at Cornell University Law School Supreme Court collection.
^ Two-thirds of soldiers' deaths occurred due to disease. Nofi, Al (2001-06-13). "Statistics on the War's Costs". Louisiana State University. http://web.archive.org/web/20070711050249/http://www.cwc.lsu.edu/other/stats/warcost.htm. Retrieved 2008-09-08.
^ ^a ^b Charles W. Ramsdell The Confederate Government and the Railroads The American Historical Review, Vol. 22, No. 4 (July, 1917), p. 795.
^ Mary Elizabeth Massey Ersatz in the Confederacy University of South Carolina Press, Columbia. 1952 p. 128.
^ Charles W. Ramsdell The Confederate Government and the Railroads The American Historical Review, Vol. 22, No. 4 (July, 1917), pp. 809-810.
^ U.S. Bureau of the Census, Population of the 100 Largest Urban Places: 1860, Internet Release date: June 15, 1998
^ Tariff of the Confederate States of America, May 21, 1861.
^ Ian Drury, ed. (2003) [2000] "American Civil War: Naval & Economic Warfare" History of warLondon: Times Booksp. 138ISBN 0-00-716458 0 "The Confederacy underwent a government-led industrial revolution during the war, but its economy was slowly strangled."
^ Ian Drury, ed. (2003) [2000] "American Civil War: Naval & Economic Warfare" History of warLondon: Times Booksp. 138ISBN 0-00-716458 0 "Like other belligerents unable to occupy enemy territory effectively, the US army resorted to raids. The most spectacular was Sherman's march through Georgia to the sea. This not only inflicted economic damage on the areas traversed, but disrupted the railways that supplied Confederate armies."
^ http://www.census.gov/prod/www/abs/decennial/1860.htm
^ Form available for viewing at http://c.ancestry.com/pdf/trees/charts/1860Slave.pdf shows how data on slave ownership was collected.
^ Calculated by dividing the number of owners (obtained via the census) by the number of free persons.
^ All data for this section taken from the University of Virginia Library, Historical Census Browser, Census Data for Year 1860.
^ 1862blackCSN.
^ Rubin p. 104.
^ Levine pp. 146-147.
^ Eicher, Civil War High Commands.
^ Journal of the Confederate Congress Home Page: U.S. Congressional Documents.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Confederate States of America

The McGavock Confederate Cemetery at Franklin, TN
Confederate offices Index of Politicians by Office Held or Sought
Civil War Research & Discussion Group -*Confederate States of Am. Army and Navy Uniforms, 1861
The Countryman, 1862-1866, published weekly by Turnwold, Ga., edited by J.A. Turner
The Federal and the Confederate Constitution Compared
The Making of the Confederate Constitution, by A. L. Hull, 1905.
Confederate Currency
Photographs of the original Confederate Constitution and other Civil War documents owned by the Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library at the University of Georgia Libraries.
Photographic History of the Civil War, 10 vols., 1912.
DocSouth: Documenting the American South - numerous online text, image, and audio collections.
Confederate States of America: A Register of Its Records in the Library of Congress
Abbeville's Confederate Colonels Historical Marker
Burt Stark House / Jefferson Davis's Flight
The First Organized Meeting Advocating the Right of a State to Secede from the Union Historical Marker
Thus Secession Had its Birth Historical Marker
Last Cabinet Meeting Historical Marker
Secession Hill Historical Marker
Images of Georgia's Ordinance of Secession, Confederate Pension Records, and Muster Rolls from the collection of the Georgia Archives.

Links to related articles

v • d • e Former Confederate States of America (CSA)

	Alabama · Arkansas · Florida · Georgia · Louisiana · Mississippi · North Carolina · South Carolina · Tennessee · Texas · Virginia

v • d • e Cabinet of President Jefferson Davis (1861-1865)

Vice President	Alexander H. Stephens (1861-1865)

Secretary of State	Robert Toombs (1861) • Robert M. T. Hunter (1861-1862) • Judah P. Benjamin (1862-1865)

Secretary of the Treasury	Christopher Memminger (1861-1864) • George A. Trenholm (1864-1865) • John H. Reagan (1865)

Secretary of War	Leroy P. Walker (1861) • Judah P. Benjamin (1861-1862) • George W. Randolph (1862) • James A. Seddon (1862-1865) • John C. Breckinridge (1865)

Secretary of the Navy	Stephen R. Mallory (1861-1865)

Postmaster General	John H. Reagan (1861-1865)

Attorney General	Judah P. Benjamin (1861) • Thomas Bragg (1861-1862) • Thomas H. Watts (1862-1863) • George Davis (1864-1865)

Confederate States Senators

Alabama: Clay • Jemison • Walker • Yancey • Arkansas: Garland • R. Johnson • Mitchel • Florida: Baker • Maxwell • Georgia: Hill • H. Johnson • Lewis • Kentucky: Burnett • Simms • Louisiana: Semmes • Sparrow • Mississippi: Brown • Phelan • Watson • Missouri: Clark • W. Johnson • Peyton • Vest • North Carolina: Davis • Dortch • Graham • Reade • South Carolina: Barnwell • Orr • Tennessee: Haynes • Henry • Texas: Oldham • Wigfall • Virginia: Caperton • Hunter • Preston

American Civil War

Origins

Combatants · Theaters · Campaigns · Battles · States

Combatants

Union (USA)	Union Army · Union Navy · Revenue Cutter Service

Confederacy (CSA)	Confederate States Army · Confederate States Navy · Confederate States Marine Corps

Theaters

Eastern · Western · Lower Seaboard · Trans-Mississippi · Pacific Coast · Union naval blockade

Campaigns

Anaconda Plan · New Mexico · Jackson's Valley · Peninsula · Northern Virginia · Maryland · Stones River · Vicksburg · Tullahoma · Gettysburg · Morgan's Raid · Bristoe · Knoxville · Red River · Overland · Atlanta · Valley 1864 · Bermuda Hundred · Richmond-Petersburg · Franklin-Nashville · Price's Raid · Sherman's March · Carolinas · Appomattox

Major battles

Fort Sumter · 1st Bull Run · Wilson's Creek · Fort Donelson · Pea Ridge · Hampton Roads · Shiloh · New Orleans · Corinth · Seven Pines · Seven Days · 2nd Bull Run · Antietam · Perryville · Fredericksburg · Stones River · Chancellorsville · Gettysburg · Vicksburg · Chickamauga · Chattanooga · Wilderness · Spotsylvania · Cold Harbor · Atlanta · Mobile Bay · Franklin · Nashville · Five Forks

Involvement
by state or territory

AL · AR · AZ · CA · CO · CT · DC · DE · FL · GA · ID · IL · IN · IA · KS · KY · LA · ME · MD · MA · MI · MN · MS · MO · MT · NV · NE · NH · NJ · NM · NY · NC · OH · OK · OR · PA · RI · SC · TN · TX · UT · VT · VA · WV · WI

Leaders

Confederate

Military	R.H. Anderson · Beauregard · Bragg · Cooper · Early · Ewell · Forrest · Gorgas · Hill · Hood · Jackson · A.S. Johnston · J.E. Johnston · Lee · Longstreet · Morgan · Mosby · Price · Quantrill · Semmes · E.K. Smith · Stuart · Taylor · Wheeler

Civilian	Benjamin · Davis · Mallory · Seddon · Stephens

Union

Military	Anderson · Buell · Butler · Burnside · Du Pont · Farragut · Foote · Grant · Halleck · Hooker · Hunt · McClellan · McDowell · Meade · Meigs · Pope · D.D. Porter · Rosecrans · Scott · Sheridan · Sherman · Thomas

Civilian	Adams · Chase · Ericsson · Lincoln · Pinkerton · Seward · Stanton · Stevens · Wade · Welles

Aftermath

13th Amendment · 14th Amendment · 15th Amendment · Alabama Claims · Carpetbaggers · Freedmen's Bureau · Jim Crow laws · Ku Klux Klan · Reconstruction · Redeemers

		Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more
		US Military Dictionary. The Oxford Essential Dictionary of the U.S. Military. Copyright © 2001, 2002 by Oxford University Press, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more
		Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more
		US History Encyclopedia. © 2006 through a partnership of Answers Corporation. All rights reserved. Read more
		Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/. Read more
		History Dictionary. The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Edited by E.D. Hirsch, Jr., Joseph F. Kett, and James Trefil. Copyright © 2002 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin. All rights reserved. Read more
		Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Confederate States of America". Read more

	Who was leader of the Confederate States of America? Read answer...
	How were the Confederate States of America formed? Read answer...
	What is the confederate of the states of America? Read answer...

	President of the confederate State of America?
	What are the names of the confederate states of america?
	When were the confederate states of america founded?

Confederate States of America

Contents

History

Seceding states

Seceding territories

Causes of secession

Religion, slavery and secession

Rise and fall of the Confederacy

Government and politics

Constitution

Executive

Legislative

Judicial

Civil liberties

Capital

Financial instruments

International diplomacy

"Died of states' rights"

Relations with the United States

Confederate flags

Geography

Climate

River system

Railroad system

Rural/urban configuration

Economy

Demographics

Armed forces

Military leaders

Table of CSA states

See also

References

Bibliography

Economic and social history

Politics

Primary sources

Notes

External links