The
Confederate States of America (also called the
Confederacy, the Confederate
States, and the CSA) was the government
set up from 1861 to 1865 by eleven southern slave
states of the United States
of America
that had
declared their secession
from the U.S. The CSA's
de
facto control over its claimed territory varied during the
course of the
American Civil War,
depending on the success of its military in battle.
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.
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
Seceding states
Seven states declared their secession before Lincoln took office on
March 4, 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)
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:
- Virginia
(April 17, 1861; ratified by voters May 23,
1861)
- Arkansas
(May 6, 1861)
- Tennessee
(May 7, 1861; ratified by voters June 8,
1861)
- North Carolina
(May 20, 1861)
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 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. 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.
On April 27, 1861 President Lincoln, in response to the destruction
of railroad bridges and telegraph lines by southern sympathizers in
Maryland (the
state which borders the U.S. capital, Washington, D.C., on three
sides), authorized General Scott to suspend the writ of habeas
corpus along the railroad line from Philadelphia to Baltimore to
Washington.
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.
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..."
Confederate declarations of martial law checked attempts to secede
from the Confederate States of America by some counties in
East Tennessee.

West Virginia counties approving
Virginia's secession from the U.S.
Seceding territories
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,
with Mesilla
serving as the territorial capital. 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. 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.
Causes of secession
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." 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:
Four of the seceding states, the
Deep
South states of South Carolina,Mississippi, Georgia, and Texas,
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".
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.” Speaking
specifically of Davis, Cooper wrote:
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."
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, but by 1850 John C. Calhoun would note that “already
three great evangelical churches had been torn asunder” over
slavery. 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”.
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.
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-housesin 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.
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. Unionists captured President Davis at
Irwinville,
Georgia
, on May 10, 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.
Government and politics
Constitution
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. 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
Legislative
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
Presidents pro tempore of the Provisional Congress
Sessions of the Confederate Congress
Tribal Representatives to Confederate Congress
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.
Confederate district courts were authorized by Article III, Section
1, of the CSA Constitution, and President Davis appointed judges
within the individual states of the Confederate States of America.
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. Where Federal troops gained control over
parts of the Confederacy and re-established civilian government,
U.S. district courts sometimes resumed jurisdiction.
Supreme Court - not established.
District Courts - judges
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:
Capital
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" — that is, Britain had to support the Confederacy to
obtain cotton — proved mistaken.
The British instead
focused more heavily on cotton and textiles produced in India, Brazil
or in
Russia, with the French also increasing Algerian
production. The early years of the war did
not see strong international demand for textiles, and hence for
cotton. 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;
however, abolitionist sentiment among English workers ran counter
to this economic interest in Confederate victory.
While the Confederate government sent repeated delegations to
Europe, historians do not give the CSA high marks for diplomatic
skills.
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. When Lincoln
released the two, however, tensions cooled, and in the end the
episode did not aid the Confederate cause.
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 . 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.
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. 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.
"Died of states' rights"
Historian
Frank Lawrence
Owsley argued that the Confederacy "died of states' rights."
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." 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.
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.
Historian George Rable wrote:
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".
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."
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:
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:
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".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."
Confederate flags
 |
 |
 |
 |
1st National Flag
"Stars and Bars" |
2nd National Flag
"Stainless Banner" |
3rd National Flag
"Blood Stained Banner" |
CSA Naval Jack
1861-1863 |
.svg/170px-Conf_Navy_Jack_(light_blue).svg) |
 |
 |
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
first 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 to the
"Stainless Banner". The Stainless Banner, known as the "Southern
Cross" (or
Saint Andrew's Cross
), 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 popular media, many people
associate the "Southern Cross" flag with the Confederacy . 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 from a semi-arid
steppe to an 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.
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
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.
Many had to lay off employees, and in particular, let go skilled
technicians and engineers. 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. 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.
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 — 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 |
(See also Atlanta in the
Civil War, Charleston, South
Carolina, in the Civil War, Nashville in the Civil War,
New Orleans in the Civil
War, Wilmington,
North Carolina, in the American Civil War, and Richmond in the Civil
War).
Economy
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. 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.But such efforts faced setbacks: Union raids and
in particular
Sherman's
scorched-earth campaigning destroyed much economic
infrastructure.
Demographics
The
United States Census of
1860 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 #
Slaveholders
!% of Free
Population
Owning
Slaves
!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
! Total
|
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).
Armed forces

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 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. 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."
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.
Military leaders
Military leaders of the Confederacy (with their state or country of
birth and highest rank) included:
Table of CSA states
State |
Flag |
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) |
|
See also
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
- White, Ronald C. Jr. A. Lincoln: A Biography.
(2009) ISBN 978-1-4000-6499-1
- 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
- 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

Notes
- 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: Historian Daniel
W. Crofts disagrees with McPherson. Crofts wrote: Crofts further
noted that,
- 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.
- White (2009) p. 416
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Lincoln's proclamation calling for troops from the
remaining states (bottom of page); Department of War details to
States (top).
- Davis p. 248.
- "Legal Materials on the Confederate States of
America in the Schaffer Law Library", Albany Law School.
- [Moise, E. Warren, Rebellion in the Temple of Justice
(iUniverse 2003)]
- Records of District Courts of the United States,
National Archives.
- 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
- 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.
- 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. 259.
- Rable (1994) p. 265.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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
- 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
- "Original Confederate Soldier Records"
- 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.
- "Original Confederate Soldier Service Records From
NARA"