The United States ("Union") refused to recognize the Confederacy or negotiate with it for the independence of its constituent states. The American Civil War broke out when Confederate President Jefferson Davis ordered an assault on an American fortress in Charleston, South Carolina, in April 1861. All but two major battles took place in Confederate territory, as the South was slowly overwhelmed by the much larger Union, and choked by a naval blockade. When Robert E. Lee and the other Confederate generals surrendered their armies in the spring of 1865, the Confederacy collapsed, the slaves were freed, and a difficult process of Reconstruction re-united the nation.

History

Secession process Dec 1860-May 1861

• South Carolina (December 20 1860),
• Mississippi (January 9 1861),
• Florida (January 10 1861),
• Alabama (January 11 1861),
• Georgia (January 19 1861),
• Louisiana (January 26 1861),
• Texas (February 1 1861).

• Virginia (April 17 1861),Virginia did not turn over its military to the Confederate States until June 8 1861 and the Constitution of the Confederate States was ratified on June 19 1861.
• Arkansas (May 6 1861),
• Tennessee (May 7 1861).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.
• North Carolina (May 20 1861)

• Missouri (October 31 1861 by the Neosho Legislature)
• Kentucky (November 20, 1861 by the Russellville Convention)

Following Abraham Lincoln's election as President of the United States in 1860 on a platform that opposed the extension of slavery, seven slave southern states chose to secede from the United States and declared that the Confederate States of America was formed on February 4, 1861; Jefferson Davis was selected as its first President the next day.

Texas joined the Confederate States of America on March 2 and then replaced its governor, Sam Houston, when he refused to take an oath of allegiance to the Confederate States of America. These seven states seceded¹ from the United States and took control of military/naval installations, ports, and custom houses within their boundaries, triggering the American Civil War.

A month after the Confederate States of America was formed, on March 4, 1861, Abraham Lincoln was sworn in as President of the United States. In his inaugural address, he argued that the Constitution was a more perfect union than the earlier Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, that it was a binding contract, and called the secession "legally void". The legal issue of whether or not the Constitution was a binding contract has rarely been addressed by academics, and to this day is a hotly debated concept. He stated he had no intent to invade Southern states, but would use force to maintain possession of federal property and collection of various federal taxes, duties and imposts. His speech closed with a plea for restoration of the bonds of union.

On April 12, South Carolina troops fired upon the federal troops stationed at Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina, until the troops surrendered. Following the Battle of Fort Sumter, Lincoln called for all remaining states in the Union to send troops to recapture Sumter and other forts, defend the capital (Washington, D.C.), and preserve the Union. Most Northerners believed that a quick victory for the Union would crush the rebellion, and so Lincoln only called for volunteers for 90 days of duty. Lincoln's call for troops resulted in four more states voting to secede. Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina joined the Confederacy for a total of 11. Once Virginia joined the Confederate States, the Confederate capital was moved from Montgomery, Alabama to Richmond, Virginia.

Kentucky was a border state during the American Civil War and, for a time, had two state governments, one supporting the Confederacy and one supporting the Union. The original government of Kentucky remained in the Union after a short-lived attempt at neutrality, but a rival faction from that state was accepted as a member of the Confederate States of America. A more complex situation surrounds the Missouri Secession, but, in any event, Missouri was also considered a member of the Confederate States of America. With Kentucky and Missouri, the number of Confederate states is thus sometimes considered to be 13.

The five tribal governments of the Indian Territory—which became Oklahoma in 1907—also mainly supported the Confederacy.

Citizens at Mesilla and Tuscon in the southern part of New Mexico Territory formed a secession convention and voted to join the Confederacy on March 16, 1861 and appointed Lewis Owings as the new territorial Governor. In July, Mesilla appealed to Confederate troops in El Paso, Texas under Lt. Col. John Baylor for help in removing the Union army under Maj. Isaac Lynde that was stationed nearby. The Confederates under Baylor defeated Lynde at the Battle of Mesilla on July 27th. After the battle Baylor established a territorial government for the Confederate Arizona Territory and named himself Governor. In 1862 a New Mexico Campaign was launched under General Sibley to take the northern half of New Mexico. Confederates briefly occupied the territorial capital of Santa Fe but, defeated at Glorietta Pass in March, the Confederates retreated and never returned.

The northernmost slave states (Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware and West Virginia) were contested territory but the Union won control by 1862. In 1861, martial law was declared in Maryland (the state which borders the U.S. capital, Washington, D.C., on three sides) to block attempts at secession. Delaware, also a slave state, never considered secession, nor did the capital of the U.S., Washington, D.C.. In 1861, during the war, a unionist legislature in Wheeling, Virginia seceded from Virginia, claiming 48 counties, and joined the United States in 1863 as the state of West Virginia, with a constitution that would have gradually abolished slavery.

Attempts to secede from the Confederate States of America by some counties eastern Tennessee were held in check by Confederate declarations of martial law^*." target="_blank" >Another eastern Tennessee county, Franklin County, Tennessee, briefly seceded from Tennessee and aligned itself with Alabama on February 24, 1861 when it appeared that Tennessee would not be joining the Confederacy. The county rejoined Tennessee on June 24, 1861 when the rest of Tennessee seceded.[http://www.leonidaspolk.org/FranklinCountySecession.html

The surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia by General Lee at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865 is generally taken as the end of the Confederate States. President Davis was captured at Irwinville, Georgia on May 10 and the remaining Confederate armies surrendered by June 1865. The last Confederate flag was hauled down, on CSS Shenandoah on November 6, 1865.

Government and politics

Constitution

At the drafting of the Constitution of the Confederate States of America, a few radical proposals such as allowing only slave states to join and the reinstatement of the Atlantic slave trade were turned down. The Constitution specifically did not include a provision allowing states to secede, since the southerners considered this to be a right intrinsic to a sovereign state which the United States Constitution had not required them to renounce, and thus including it as such would have weakened their original argument for secession.

The President of the Confederate States of America was to be elected to a six-year term and could not be reelected. The only president was Jefferson Davis; the Confederate States of America was defeated by the federal government before he completed his term. One unique power granted to the Confederate president was the ability to subject a bill to a line item veto, a power 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 US Congress.

Printed currency in the forms of bills and stamps was authorized and put into circulation, although by the individual states in the Confederacy's name. The government considered issuing Confederate coinage. Plans, dies and 4 "proofs" were created, but a lack of bullion prevented any public coinage.

Although the preamble refers to "each State acting in its sovereign and independent character", it also refers to the formation of a "permanent federal government". Also, although slavery was protected in the constitution, it also prohibited the importation of new slaves from outside the Confederate States of America (except from slaveholding states or territories of the United States).

Civil liberties

Capital

International diplomacy and legal status

In November 1863 Confederate diplomat A. Dudley Mann secured a meeting with Cardinal Antonelli, the Vatican's Secretary of State, to deliver a letter from Davis to Pope Pius IX. On November 14th Antonelli arranged for a meeting between Mann and the Pope to deliver Davis' address. After a lengthy conversation in which the Pontiff reiterated his opposition to the war, Pius promised Mann "I will write a letter to President Davis, and of such a character that it may be published for general perusal."A few days later Mann received the promised letter, which was 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 viewed it as a de facto recognition of the C.S.A. Confederate Secretary of State Judah P. Benjamin 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.^*

Though generally regarded as informal, the Confederacy's exchanges with the Vatican were arguably the strongest reception they received from a European power. In response to Pius' 1863 letter, Davis authorized Patrick N. Lynch, the Catholic Bishop of Charleston, South Carolina, to represent him in further communications with the Vatican. Lynch travelled to Rome and remained there until after the war. Antonelli also received Confederate diplomat J.T. Soutter in November 1864.^*

Throughout the war, most European powers adopted a policy of neutrality, meeting informally with Confederate diplomats but withholding diplomatic recognition. In its place, they applied international law principles that recognized the Northern and Southern sides of the war as belligerents. Canada allowed both Confederate and Union agents to work openly within its borders and some state governments in northern Mexico negotiated regional agreements to cover trade on the Texas border.

For the four years of its existence, the Confederate States of America asserted its independence and appointed dozens of diplomatic agents abroad. The Northern government, by contrast, asserted that the southern states were provinces in rebellion and refused any formal recognition of their status. Telling of this dispute, the Confederate Government responded to the hostilities by formally declaring war on the United States while the Union Government conducted its war efforts under a proclamation of blockade and rebellion by President Lincoln. 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, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Texas v. White that secession was unconstitutional and legally null. The court's opinion was rendered by Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, the former Treasury Secretary under Lincoln. Chase's opinion was immediately attacked by ex-Confederates. Jefferson Davis and Alexander Stephens penned subsequent legal arguments in favor of secession's legality, most notably Davis' The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government.

Confederate flags

The official flag of the Confederate States of America, and the one actually called the "Stars and Bars", has seven stars, for the seven states that initially formed the Confederacy. This flag was sometimes hard to distinguish from the Union flag under battle conditions, so the Confederate battle flag, the "Southern Cross", became the one more commonly used in military operations. The Southern Cross has 13 stars, adding the four states that joined the Confederacy after Fort Sumter, and the two divided states of Kentucky and Missouri.

As a result of its depiction in 20th century popular media, the "Southern Cross" is a flag commonly associated with the Confederacy today. The actual "Southern Cross" is a square-shaped flag, but the more commonly seen rectangular flag is actually the flag of the First Tennessee Army, also known as the Naval Jack because it was first used by the Confederate Navy.

The Confederate battle flag is a controversial symbol in contemporary American politics. Many Americans, particularly African Americans, consider it a racist symbol akin to the Nazi swastika because of its link to the slavery in the 19th century. In the 20th century Southern opponents of the Civil Rights Movement, the Klu Klux Klan, American neo-Nazis, and other white supremacists have used the flag as a symbol for their causes. Many southerners, however, see the flag as a symbol of Southern pride and culture. As a result, there have been numerous political fights over the use of the Confederate battle flag in Southern state flags, at sporting events at Southern universities, and on public buildings.

Political leaders of the Confederacy

Executive

Legislative

The legislative branch of the Confederate States of America was 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), and the Confederate House of Representatives, with members popularly elected by residents of the individual states. Speakers of the Provisional Congress

• Robert Woodward Barnwell of South Carolina - February 4 1861
• Howell Cobb, Sr. of Georgia - February 4 1861-February 17 1862
• Thomas Stanhope Bocock of Virginia - February 18, 1862-March 18, 1865

Presidents pro tempore

• Howell Cobb, Sr. of Georgia
• Robert Woodward Barnwell of South Carolina
• Josiah Abigail Patterson Campbell of Mississippi
• Thomas Stanhope Bocock of Virginia

Tribal Representatives to Confederate Congress

• Elias Cornelius Boudinot 1862-65 - Cherokee
• Burton Allen Holder 1864-1865 Chickasaw
• Robert McDonald Jones 1863-65 - Choctaw

=Sessions of the Confederate Congress

• Provisional Confederate Congress
• First Confederate Congress
• Second Confederate Congress

Judicial

The state and local courts generally continued to operate as they had been, simply recognizing the CSA, rather than the USA, as the national government.^*

Supreme Court - not established

District Court

• Asa Biggs 1861-1865
• John White Brockenbrough 1861
• Alexander Mosby Clayton 1861
• Jesse J. Finley 1861-1862

Geography

Subtropical climate

River system

Rail network

Rural nation

Economy

The Confederacy had an agrarian-based economy that relied heavily on slave-run plantations with exports to a world market of cotton, and to a lesser extent tobacco and sugar cane. Local food production included grains, hogs, cattle, and gardens. The 11 states produced only $155 million in manufactured goods in 1860, chiefly from local grist mills, together with lumber, processed tobacco, cotton goods and naval stores such as turpentine. The CSA adopted a low tariff of 10%, but imposed them on all imports from the United States. The tariff mattered little; the Confederacy's ports were shut to all commercial traffic by the Union blockade, and very few people paid taxes on goods smuggled from the U.S. The lack of adequate financial resources led the Confederacy to finance the war through printing money, which in turn led to high inflation.

Armed forces

• Confederate States Army
• Confederate States Navy
• Confederate States Marine Corps

The Confederate military leadership included many veterans from the United States Army and U.S. Navy who had resigned their Federal commissions and had been appointed to senior positions in the Confederate armed forces. Many had served in the Mexican War (such as Jefferson Davis), but others had little or no military experience (such as Leonidas Polk, who attended West Point but did not graduate.) The Confederate officer corps was composed 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 in 1863, but no midshipmen had graduated by the time the Confederacy collapsed.

The rank and file of the Confederate armed forces consisted of white males with an average age between 16 and 28. The Confederacy adopted conscription in 1862, but opposition was widespread. Depleted by casualties and desertions, the military suffered chronic manpower shortages. Towards the end of the Civil War, boys as young as 12 were fighting in combat roles and the Confederacy began an all-black regiment with measures underway to offer freedom to slaves who voluntarily served in the Confederate military.

Military leaders of the Confederacy

• 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
• Tyree H. Bell (Tennessee) - Brigadier General (Served under Forrest)
• P.G.T. Beauregard (Louisiana) - General
• Richard Stoddert Ewell (Virginia) - Lieutenant General
• Samuel Cooper (New Jersey) - General (Adjutant General and highest ranking general in the Army)
• James Longstreet (South Carolina) - Lieutenant General
• Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson (Virginia) - Lieutenant General
• John Hunt Morgan (Kentucky) - Brigadier General
• A.P. Hill (Virginia) - Lieutenant General
• John Bell Hood (Texas) - Lieutenant General
• Wade Hampton III (South Carolina) - Lieutenant General
• Nathan Bedford Forrest (Tennessee) - Lieutenant General
• J.E.B. Stuart (Virginia) - Major General
• Edward Porter Alexander (Georgia) - Brigadier General
• Franklin Buchanan (Maryland) - Admiral
• Raphael Semmes (Maryland) - Rear Admiral
• French Forrest (Maryland) - Acting Assistant Secretary of the Confederate Navy
• Josiah Tattnall (Georgia) - Commodore
• Stand Watie (Indian Territory, now Oklahoma) - Brigadier General (last to surrender)
• Leonidas Polk (North Carolina) - Bishop & Lieutenant General
• Jubal Anderson Early (Virginia) - Lieutenant General
• Richard Taylor (Kentucky) - Lieutenant General (Son of US-President Zachary Taylor)

Significant dates

NOTE: According to the New York Public Library Desk Reference, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina and South Carolina were all readmitted June 25, 1868, and Georgia was readmitted a second time on July 15, 1870.

See also

• Golden Circle (Slavery)
• Origins of the American Civil War
• Southern United States
• History of the Southern United States
• Flags of the Confederate States of America
• Seal of the Confederate States of America
• Confederate States of America dollar
• Military history of the Confederate States
• Stamps and postal history of the Confederate States
• League of the South

References

• Eicher, John H., & Eicher, David J., Civil War High Commands, Stanford University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8047-3641-3.

Notes

Further reading

• Richard N. Current, ed. Encyclopedia of the Confederacy (4 vol 1993), 1900 pp; articles by scholars
• Faust, Patricia L. ed, Historical Times Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Civil War (1986)
• David S. Heidler et al. Encyclopedia of the American Civil War : A Political, Social, and Military History (2002), 2400 pages (ISBN 039304758X)
• Steven E. Woodworth, ed. The American Civil War: A Handbook of Literature and Research (1996) 750 pages of historiography and bibliography

Economic & Social History

• Ball Douglas B. Financial Failure and Confederate Defeat.1991.
• Robert C. Black III, The Railroads of the Confederacy (1998)
• Clinton Catherine, and Nina Silber, eds. Divided Houses: Gender and the Civil War 1992.
• Drew Gilpin Faust, Mothers of Invention: Women of the Slaveholding South in the American Civil War (1996)
• Drew Gilpin Faust, The Creation of Confederate Nationalism: Ideology and Identity in the Civil War South. 1988.
• Mark Grimsley. The Hard Hand of War: Union Military Policy toward Southern Civilians, 1861-1865 1995.
• Perry Carlton Lentz, Our Missing Epic: A Study in the Novels about the American Civil War (1970)
• Mary Elizabeth Massey. Bonnet Brigades: American Women and the Civil War. 1966.
• Mary Elizabeth Massey. Ersatz in the Confederacy 1952.
• Mary Elizabeth Massey. 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. 1944.
• Roark James L. Masters without Slaves: Southern Planters in the Civil War and Reconstruction 1977.
• Anne Sarah Rubin, A Shattered Nation: The Rise and Fall of the Confederacy, 1861-1868 (2005), a cultural study of Confederates' self images.
• James L. Sellers, "The Economic Incidence of the Civil War in the South." Mississippi Valley Historical Review 14 (1927): 179-191. in JSTOR
• Emory M. Thomas, The Confederacy as a Revolutionary Experience. 1992.
• Peter Wallenstein . "Rich Man's War, Rich Man's Fight: Civil War and the Transformation of Public Finance in Georgia." Journal of Southern History 50 (1984): 15-43. in JSTOR
• Bell Irwin Wiley. Confederate Women 1975.
• Bell Irwin Wiley. The Plain People of the Confederacy 1944.
• C. Vann Woodward , ed. Mary Chesnut's Civil War 1981.

Politics

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

Primary sources

• Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government - Vol. 1 (1881)
• Richard B. Harwell, The Confederate Reader (1957)
• Jones John B. A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital. Edited by Howard Swiggert. 1935. 2 vols. (1993)
• W. Buck Yearns and John G. Barret,eds. North Carolina Civil War Documentary (1980)
• Jon L. Wakelyn, ed. Southern Pamphlets on Secession, November 1860-April 1861 (1996)
• online publications from Confederacy 400 maps, books, pamphlets, plus manuscripts
• A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Confederacy, Including the Diplomatic Correspondence 1861-1865. 2 vols. Compiled and edited by James D. Richardson. (1906)

External links

• Confederate offices Index of Politicians by Office Held or Sought
• Civil War Research & Discussion Group - Fields Of Conflict - Containing 1000+ Links And 350+ Articles.
• of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union, 1860, South Carolina's Declaration of Independence
• An Act to Prohibit the Importation of Luxuries, or of Articles not Necessary or of Common Use, 1864, a Confederate Congress document
• 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.
• Official Journal of the House of Representatives of the State of Louisiana, November, 1861
• Photographic History of the Civil War, 10 vols., 1912.
• Preventing Diplomatic Recognition of the Confederacy
• DocSouth: Documenting the American South - numerous online text, image, and audio collections.
• Confederate States of America: Heads of State: 1861-1865
• The Geographical Reader for the Dixie Children - a Confederacy textbook written in 1863.

Confederate States of America | Former countries in North America | Short-lived states | 1861 establishments | 1865 disestablishments

Estats Confederats d'Amèrica | Amerikas Konfødererede Stater | Konföderierte Staaten von Amerika | Ameerika Riikide Konföderatsioon | Estados Confederados de América | Konfederaciitaj Ŝtatoj de Ameriko | États confédérés d'Amérique | Estados Confederados de América | Konfederativne Države Amerike | Stati Confederati d'America | קונפדרציית המדינות של אמריקה | Geconfedereerde Staten van Amerika | アメリカ連合国 | Amerikas konfødererte stater | Confederate States of America | Skonfederowane Stany Ameryki | Estados Confederados da América | Statele Confederate ale AmericiiConfederate States of America Конфедеративные Штаты Америки | Confederate States of America | Конфедеративне Америчке Државе | Etelävaltiot | Amerikas konfedererade stater | 美利堅聯盟國