Confederate States of America Information

The Confederate States of America (also called the Confederacy, the Confederate States, C.S.A. and The South) was a government set up from 1861 to 1865 by eleven Southern slave states that had declared their secession from the United States. Secessionists argued that the United States Constitution was a compact among states, an agreement which each state could abandon without consultation. The U.S. government (The Union) rejected secession as illegal. Following a Confederate attack upon Fort Sumter, a federal fort in the Confederate state of South Carolina, the U.S. used military action to defeat the Confederacy. No foreign nation officially recognized the Confederate States of America as an independent country,^[1] but several did grant belligerent status.

The Confederate Constitution of seven state signatories — South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas — formed a "permanent federal government" in Montgomery, Alabama. In response to a call by Lincoln for troops from each state to recapture Sumter and other lost federal properties in the South, four additional slave-holding states — Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina — declared their secession and joined the Confederacy. Missouri and Kentucky were represented by partisan factions from those states. Also aligned with the Confederacy were the Five Civilized Tribes and a new Confederate Territory of Arizona. Efforts to secede in Maryland were halted by martial law, while Delaware, though of divided loyalty, did not attempt it. West Virginia separated from the Confederate state of Virginia in 1863 and aligned with the Union. The Confederate government in Richmond, Virginia had an uneasy relationship with its member states because of issues related to control of manpower, although the South mobilized nearly its entire white male population for war.^[3]

Confederate control over its claimed territory and population steadily shrank from 73% to 34% during the course of the American Civil War due to successful Union overland campaigns, their control of inland waterways into the South, and the seacoast Union blockade. These created an insurmountable disadvantage in men, supplies and finance. Public support of the Jefferson Davis administration eroded over time with repeated military reverses, economic hardship, and charges of autocratic government. Richmond fell after four years of Union campaigns in April 1865, Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant, and the Confederacy effectively collapsed.

The U.S. Congress began a decade-long process known as Reconstruction which some scholars treat as an extension of the Civil War. It lasted through the administrations of Lincoln, Andrew Johnson and Grant, and saw the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment to free slaves, the Fourteenth to guarantee dual U.S. and state citizenship to all, and the Fifteenth to guarantee the right to vote in states. The war left the South economically devastated by military action, ruined infrastructure and exhausted resources. The region remained well below national levels of prosperity until after World War II.^[4]

Contents 1 History 1.1 A Revolution in disunion 1.1.1 Causes of secession 1.1.2 Secessionists and conventions 1.1.3 Inauguration and response 1.2 Secession 1.2.1 States 1.2.2 Territories 1.2.3 Capitals 1.3 Diplomacy 1.3.1 United States, a foreign power 1.3.2 International diplomacy 1.4 Confederacy at war 1.4.1 Armed forces 1.4.2 Victories: 1861 1.4.3 Incursions: 1862 1.4.4 Anaconda: 1863–1864 1.4.5 Collapse: 1865 1.5 "Died of states' rights" 2 Government and politics 2.1 Constitution 2.1.1 Executive 2.1.2 Legislative 2.1.3 Judicial 2.1.4 Post Office 2.2 Civil liberties 3 Economy 3.1 Political Economy 3.2 National production 3.3 Transportation systems 3.4 Financial instruments 3.5 Devastation by 1865 4 Flags 4.1 National flags 4.2 States and flags 5 Geography 5.1 Climate 5.2 Rural/urban configuration 5.3 Demographics 6 Military leaders 7 See also 8 Notes 9 References 10 Bibliography 10.1 State studies 10.2 Economic and social history 10.3 Politics 10.4 Foreign affairs 10.5 Primary sources 11 External links

History

The Confederacy was formed and a civil war followed its establishment. A sufficient number of whites had considered themselves more Southern than American and would fight for their state and their section to be apart from the larger nation. That sectionalism became Southern nationalism, the "Cause". For the duration of its existence, the Confederacy underwent trial by war.^[5] The Southern Cause transcended ideology of "states rights" concerning tariff policy or internal improvements to include lifestyle, values, and belief system. Its “way of life” became sacred to its adherents. Everything of the South became a moral question, commingling love of things Southern and hate of things Yankee. Not only did national political parties split, but national churches and interstate families also divided along sectional lines as the war approached.^[6]

In no states were the whites unanimous. There were minority views everywhere and the upland plateau regions in every state had strongholds of Unionist support, especially western Virginia and eastern Tennessee. Leaving aside Texas which at the time had five percent of the population, south of the Mason–Dixon Line voter support for the three pro-Union candidates in 1860 ranged from 37% in Florida to 71% in Missouri.^[7] It was an American tragedy, The Brother's War according to some scholars, "brother against brother, father against son, kith against kin of every degree".^[8]

Nevertheless, historians argue that several thousand large-scale planters formed a landed "aristocracy". They believed in a landed aristocratic ideal and they acted on their belief.^[9] The Confederacy had a much larger middle class of whites of small planters, farmers, merchants and artisans, which held to a “persistent folk culture in the Old South”. Otherwise as the historian Emory Thomas notes, there would have been Confederate armies of planter generals with no soldiers.^[10]

A Revolution in disunion

Main article: Origins of the American Civil War See also: Timeline of events leading to the American Civil War

The Confederate States of America was created by secessionists in Southern slave states who refused to remain in a nation that they believed was turning them into second class citizens. The agent of the change was seen as abolitionists and anti-slavery elements in the Republican Party who used repeated insult and injury to subject them to intolerable "humiliation and degradation".^[11] The "Black Republicans" and their allies now threatened a majority in the United States House, Senate and Presidency, and on the Supreme Court, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney was 83 and ailing.

Secessionist leaders, mostly in the Southern faction of the Democratic Party, settled on an answer to these attacks in the 1850s, repeatedly threatening secession. Whenever they did so on the floor of the House of Representatives, northerners in turn took up the habit of loudly singing "Goodbye John" to drown them out. On the other hand, southern interests in the United States had been protected institutionally by doughface presidents and congressmen, northern politicians with southern principles and patronage. The Supreme Court had been led by slaveholders, and its rulings had been favorable to its perpetuation.

Nevertheless, during the campaign for president in 1860, some secessionists threatened disunion at Lincoln’s election, most notably by William L. Yancey touring the north as Stephen A. Douglas toured the South calling for Union if Lincoln were elected.^[12] But to Secessionists, the Republican intent was clear. A Lincoln victory forced them to a formidable choice even before his inauguration, "The Union without slavery, or slavery without the Union." ^[13]

Of course, Constitutionally, Lincoln as president would have little direct power over the South except for the appointment of local postmasters. But Secessionists warned that Republican postmasters would resume allowing the mail to carry newspapers or pamphlets advocating abolition. They pointed out so had John Brown, who had tried to foster widespread slave insurrection. And southerners feared what powers Lincoln might unconstitutionally seize.^[12] While disunionist arguments emphasized states rights and warned against abuses from a strong national government, these themes came to haunt the wartime Confederacy.

Causes of secession

Historian Emory Thomas reconstructed the Confederacy's self image by studying the correspondence sent by the Confederate government in 1861–62 to foreign governments. He found that the C.S.A. had multiple self images:

The Southern nation was by turns a guileless people attacked by a voracious neighbor, an 'established' nation in some temporary difficulty, a collection of bucolic aristocrats making a romantic stand against the banalities of industrial democracy, a cabal of commercial farmers seeking to make a pawn of King Cotton, an apotheosis of nineteenth-century nationalism and revolutionary liberalism, or the ultimate statement of social and economic reaction."^[14]

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."^[15] Although this may seem strange, given that the majority of white Southerners did not own slaves, virtually every single white Southerner supported slavery because they did not want to be at the bottom of the social ladder.^[16] Related and intertwined secondary issues also fueled the dispute; these secondary differences included issues of free speech, runaway slaves, expansion into Cuba, 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."^[17]

Alexander Stephens Pre-war Lincoln correspondent; author of ‘Cornerstone Speech’

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".^[18] In later years, however, Stephens made efforts to qualify his remarks, claiming they were extemporaneous, metaphorical, and never meant to literally reflect "the principles of the new Government on this subject."^[19][20]

Four of the seceding states, the Deep South states of South Carolina,^[21] Mississippi,^[22] Georgia,^[23] and Texas,^[24] 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. Texas mentioned slavery 21 times, but also listed the failure of the federal government to live up to its obligations, in the original annexation agreement, to protect settlers along the exposed western frontier.

Texas further stated:

We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable.

And again:

That in this free government all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights [emphasis in the original]; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding states.^[24]

Secessionists and conventions

The Fire-Eaters, calling for immediate secession, were opposed by two elements. "Cooperationists" in the Deep South would delay secession until several states went together, maybe in a Southern Convention. Under the influence of men such as Texas Governor Sam Houston, delay had the effect of sustaining the Union.^[25] "Unionists", especially in the Border South, often former Whigs, appealed to sentimental attachment to the United States. Their favorite was John Bell of Tennessee.

William Yancy, AL Fire-eater ”The Orator of Secession” William Henry Gist, SC Gov. called Secessionist Convention

Secessionists were active politically. Governor William Henry Gist of South Carolina corresponded secretly with other Deep South governors, and most governors exchanged clandestine commissioners.^[26] Charleston’s 1860 Association published over 200,000 pamphlets to persuade the youth of the South. The top three were South Carolina’s John Townsend’s “The Doom of Slavery”, “The South Alone Should Govern the South”, and James D.B. De Bow’s “The Interest of Slavery of the Southern Non-slaveholder.^[27]

Developments in South Carolina started a chain of events. The foreman of a jury refused the legitimacy of federal courts, so Federal Judge Andrew Magrath ruled that U.S. judicial authority in South Carolina was vacated. A mass meeting in Charleston celebrating the Charleston and Savannah railroad and state cooperation led to the South Carolina legislature to call for a Secession Convention. U.S. Senator James Chesnut, Jr. resigned, and U.S. Senator James Henry Hammond followed.^[28]

Elections for Secessionist conventions were heated to “an almost raving pitch, no one dared dissent” Even once respected voices, including the Chief Justice of South Carolina, John Belton O’Neall, lost election to the Secession Convention on a Cooperationist ticket. Across the South mobs lynched Yankees and (in Texas) Germans suspected of loyalty to the United States.^[29] Generally, seceding conventions which followed did not call for a referendum to ratify, although Texas, Arkansas, and Tennessee did, also Virginia’s second convention. Missouri and Kentucky declared neutrality.

Inauguration and response

The first secession state conventions from the Deep South sent representatives to meet at the Montgomery Convention in Montgomery, Alabama on February 4, 1861. There the fundamental documents of government were promulgated, a provisional government was established, and a representative Congress met for the Confederate States of America.^[30]

Jefferson Davis Inauguration Montgomery, Alabama

The new Confederate President Jefferson Davis, a former "Cooperationist" who had insisted on delaying secession until a united South could move together, issued a call for 100,000 states' militia to defend the newborn nation.^[30] Previously John B. Floyd, U.S. Secretary of War under President James Buchanan, had moved arms south out of northern U.S. armories. To economize War Department expenditures, Floyd and Congressional elements persuaded Buchanan not to put the armaments for southern forts into place. These were now appropriated to the Confederacy along with bullion and coining dies at the U.S. mints in Charlotte, North Carolina; Dahlonega, Georgia; and New Orleans.^[30]

In his first Inaugural Address, Abraham Lincoln tried to contain the expansion of the Confederacy. To quiet the rising calls for session in additional slave-holding states, he assured the Border States that slavery would be preserved in the states where it existed, and he entertained a proposed Thirteenth "Corwin Amendment" under consideration to explicitly protect slavery in the Constitution.^[31]

The newly inaugurated Confederate Administration pursued a policy of national territorial integrity, continuing earlier state efforts in 1860 and early 1861 to remove U.S. government presence from within their boundaries. These efforts included taking possession of U.S. courts, custom houses, post offices, and most notably, arsenals and forts. But at the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter, Lincoln called up 75,000 of the states’ militia to muster under his command. The stated purpose was to re-occupy U.S. properties throughout the South, as the U.S. Congress had not authorized their abandonment. The resistance at Fort Sumter signaled his change of policy from that of the Buchanan Administration. Lincoln's response ignited a firestorm of emotion. The people both North and South demanded war, and young men rushed to their colors. Four more states (Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas) declared secessions, while Kentucky tried to remain neutral.^[30]

Secession

Secessionists argued that the United States Constitution was a compact among states that could be abandoned at any time without consultation and that each state had a right to secede. After intense debates and statewide votes, seven Deep South cotton states passed secession ordinances by February 1861 (before Abraham Lincoln took office as president), while secession efforts failed in the other eight slave states. Delegates from those seven formed the C.S.A. in February 1861, selecting Jefferson Davis as the provisional president. Unionist talk of reunion failed and Davis began raising a 100,000 man army.^[32]

States

State secession and Confederacy - two clicks to animation Reconstruction treated as an extension of the Civil War admission of 4 new states and readmission to U.S. Congress

Initially, secessionists hoped for a peaceful departure, including all slave-holding states in the Union. Moderates in the Confederate Constitutional Convention included a provision against importation of slaves from Africa to appeal to the Upper South. Non-slave states might join, but the radicals secured a two-thirds hurdle for them.^[33]

Seven states declared their secession from the United States before Lincoln took office on March 4, 1861. After the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter April 12, 1861 and Lincoln's subsequent call for troops on April 15, four more states declared their secession:^[34]

Kentucky declared neutrality but after Confederate troops moved in, the state government asked for Union troops to drive them out. Confederate state government relocated to accompany western Confederate armies and never controlled state population.

In Missouri, on October 31, 1861, a pro-CSA remnant of the General Assembly met and passed an ordinance of secession.^[35] The Confederate's state government was unable to control Missouri territory, and it was subsequently driven out of the state.

Neither Kentucky nor Missouri were declared in rebellion in the Emancipation Proclamation, as Lincoln saw no military necessity to free slaves there. The Confederacy recognized the pro-Confederate claimants in both Kentucky and Missouri and laid claim to those states, granting them Congressional representation and adding two stars to the Confederate flag.

The order of secession resolutions and dates follow.

1. South Carolina (December 20, 1860)[36] 2. Mississippi (January 9, 1861)[37] 3. Florida (January 10)[38] 4. Alabama (January 11)[39]

5. Georgia (January 19, 1861)[40] 6. Louisiana (January 26)[41] 7. Texas (February 1; referendum the 23d)[42] -- Ft. Sumter and Lincoln's call up --

8. Virginia (April 17; referendum May 23, 1861)[43] 9. Arkansas (May 6)[44] 10. Tennessee (May 7; referendum June 8)[45] 11. North Carolina (May 20, 1861)[46]

The Federals had a rump legislature in Virginia. When some of the western counties rejected the Confederacy, the Unionists held a Convention in Wheeling in August of 1861, creating a new state of 50 counties named West Virginia. However, 24 of those counties had voted in favor of Virginia's secession. ^[47] Sentiment in the new state was deeply divided, with approximately 20-22,000 soldiers given to both the Confederacy and the Union.^{[48] [49]} Representatives for most of the counties were seated in both the Wheeling and Richmond legislatures for the duration of the war.^[50] In the 1860 Presidential election, the counties of the new state had voted for Breckenridge by a small majority.^[51]

Attempts to secede from the Confederacy by some counties in East Tennessee were checked by declarations of martial law.^[52] 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. While slave holding Delaware did not produce a full regiment for the Confederacy, it did not emancipate slaves as did Missouri, the District of Columbia, and West Virginia.^[53] Maryland regiments fought in Lee's Army of Northern Virginia.^[54]

Territories

Main articles: Confederate Arizona, New Mexico Territory in the American Civil War, and Indian Territory in the American Civil War Elias C. Boudinot Arkansas secessionist leader represented Cherokee OK Terr.

Citizens at Mesilla and Tucson in the southern part of New Mexico Territory formed a secession convention, which voted to join the Confederacy on March 16, 1861, and appointed Lewis Owings as the new territorial governor. They won the Battle of Mesilla and established a territorial government with Mesilla serving as its capital.^[55] The Confederacy proclaimed the Confederate Arizona Territory on February 14, 1862 north to the 34th parallel. Marcus H. MacWillie served in both Confederate Congresses as Arizona’s delegate. In 1862 the Confederate New Mexico Campaign to take the northern half of the U.S. territory failed and the Confederate territorial government in exile located in San Antonio, Texas.^[56]

Confederate supporters in the trans-Mississippi west also claimed portions of United States Indian Territory after it evacuated the federal forts and installations. Over half the Native-American troops participating in the Civil War from the Indian Territory supported the Confederacy, troops and one general were enlisted from each tribe. On July 12, 1861, the Confederate government signed a treaty with both the Choctaw and Chickasaw Indian nations. After several battles Northern armies moved back into the territory.

Indian Territory was never formally ceded into the Confederacy by Native-American councils, but like Missouri and Kentucky, the Five Civilized Nations received representation in the Confederate Congress and their citizens were integrated into regular Confederate Army units. 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 Nation aligning with the Confederacy alleged northern violations of the Constitution, waging war against slavery commercial and political interests, abolishing slavery in the Indian Territory, and that the North intended to seize additional Indian lands.^[57]

Capitals

First Capitol, Mongtomery, AL Second Capitol, Richmond VA

Montgomery, Alabama served as the capital of the Confederate States of America from February 4 until May 29, 1861. Six states created the Confederate States of America there on February 8, 1861.^[58] Two sessions of the Provisional Congress were held in Montgomery.^[59] The Permanent Constitution was adopted there on March 12, 1861.^[60]

The naming of Richmond, Virginia as the new capital took place on May 30, 1861, and the last two sessions of the Provisional Congress were held there. The Permanent Confederate Congress and President were elected in the states and army camps on November 6, 1861. The First Congress met in four sessions in Richmond February 18 1862 – February 17, 1864. The Second Congress met there in two sessions, May 2, 1864 – March 18, 1865.^[61]

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.

Diplomacy

United States, a foreign power

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, even before the Battle of Fort Sumter, U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward issued formal instructions in April 1861 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.^[62]

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:

British Mail Packet, an ocean-going side-wheeler like the RMS Trent which caused a diplomatic crisis for the United States and Britain when Confederate diplomats were seized^[63]

[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.^[62]

The Union government never declared war, but conducted its military efforts under a presidential proclamation issued April 15, 1861, calling for troops to recapture forts and suppress a rebellion.^[64][65] Mid-war negotiations between the two sides occurred without formal political recognition, though the laws of war governed military relationships.

Following the Battle of Fort Sumter, the Confederate Congress asserted on May 6, 1861:

... war exists between the Confederate States and the Government of the United States, and the States and Territories thereof, excepting the States of Maryland, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, Missouri, and Delaware, and the Territories of Arizona, and New Mexico, and the Indian Territory south of Kansas...^[66]

Four years after the war, in 1869, the United States Supreme Court in Texas v. White ruled Texas' declaration of secession was legally null and void.^[67]

Jefferson Davis, former President of the Confederacy, and Alexander Stephens, its former Vice-President, both wrote postwar arguments in favor of secession's legality, most notably Davis' The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government.

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 had ample stocks to last over a year, and had been developing alternative sources of cotton (most notably India and Egypt) and were not about to go to war with the U.S. to try to get more cotton.^[68][69]

The Confederate government sent repeated delegations to Europe; historians give them low marks for their poor diplomacy.^[70] James M. Mason went to London and John Slidell traveled to Paris, they were unofficially interviewed, but neither secured official recognition for the Confederacy. Britain and the United States came dangerously close to war during repercussions from the Trent Affair at sea in late 1861. It seemed possible that the Confederacy would see its much desired recognition, but Lincoln released the two detained Confederate diplomats, tensions cooled, and the Confederacy gained no advantage.

Lord John Russell British Foreign Minister independently pressed to mediate in the American War.

Throughout the early years of the war, British foreign secretary Lord John Russell, Emperor Napoleon III of France, and, to a lesser extent, British Prime Minister Lord Palmerston, showed interest in recognition of the Confederacy or mediation of the war. Recognition meant certain war with the United States, loss of American grain, exports to the United States, substantial investments in American securities. War meant higher taxes and another invasion of Canada. Nevertheless, intervention for "King Cotton" was considered by the British government following the Second Battle of Bull Run, but the Union victory at the Battle of Antietam and Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation combined with internal opposition, and Britain backed away.

The British government did allow blockade runners to be built in Britain and operated by British seamen. And several nations maintained their consuls in the South whom they had appointed before the outbreak of war, but no country appointed any diplomat to the Confederacy.^[71] However they applied principles of international law that recognized the Union and Confederate sides as belligerents. In 1863, the Confederacy expelled all foreign consuls (all of them European diplomats) for advising their subjects to refuse to serve in the Confederate army.^[72]

Both Confederate and Union agents were allowed to work openly in British territories. For example, 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.^[73] Pope Pius IX wrote a letter to Jefferson Davis in which he addressed Davis as the "Honorable President of the Confederate States of America." but The Holy See never released a formal statement supporting or recognizing the Confederacy.

The Confederacy was seen internationally as a serious attempt at nationhood, and European governments sent military observers to assess the ‘’de facto’’ establishment of independence, and these included official and unofficial Arthur Freemantle of the British Coldstream Guards, Fitzgerald Ross of the Austrian Hussars, and Justus Scheibert of the Prussian army.^[74] European travelers visited and wrote accounts for publication. Importantly in 1862 the Frenchman Charles Girard's “Seven months in the rebel states during the North American War” testified “this government . . . is no longer a trial government . . . but really a normal government, the expression of popular will”.^[75] In late spring of 1863, France was in need of Confederate cotton and commercial relations in the Caribbean to support its conquest of Mexico. News of Lee’s decisive victory at Chancellorsville had reached the Continent, and French Emperor Napoleon III assured Confederate diplomat John Slidell twice that he would make “direct proposition” to England for joint recognition.^[76]

The Emperor made the same assurance to Members of Parliament John A. Roebuck and John A. Lindsay, and Roebuck in turn publically prepared a bill to submit June 30 supporting joint Anglo-French recognition of the Confederacy. Jefferson Davis and General Lee had planned to lure the Army of the Potomac away from Washington, effect another Chancellorsville defeat of maneuver, and stun the world with a diplomatic coup. Once in Pennsylvania, as the Federals began stripping Washington’s defenses to meet him, Lee urged Davis to place Beauregard in command of all forces in the Carolinas and march on Washington. Davis was content with waiting for the outcome of Lee's solo effort. Confederate independence and nationhood was at a turning point. “Southerners had a right to be optimistic, or at least hopeful, that their revolution would prevail, or at least endure”.^[77]

Confederacy at war

Armed forces

Main article: Military of the Confederate States of America

The military armed forces of the Confederacy comprised three branches: Army, Navy and Marine Corps.

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 some such as Leonidas Polk (who had attended West Point but did not graduate) had little or no experience.

Navy Jack – light blue cross also square canton, white fly Battle Flag – square also without center star

The Confederate officer corps consisted of men from both slave-owning and non-slave-owning families. 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 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^[78] in 1863, but no midshipmen graduated before the Confederacy's end.

The soldiers of the Confederate armed forces consisted mainly of white males aged between 16 and 28. 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."^[79] 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.^[80]

Victories: 1861

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.

Bombardment of Fort Sumter, Charleston, South Carolina First Battle of Bull Run Manassas, Virginia

U.S. President Buchanan had attempted to re-supply Sumter by sending the Star of the West, but Confederate forces led by cadets from The Citadel, fired upon the ship on Jan. 9, 1861, 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 Jefferson Davis and his Secretary of War, fired upon the federal troops occupying Fort Sumter, forcing their surrender. Nobody was killed in the battle, though two Union soldiers did die from an accidental explosion during the surrender ceremonies. After the war, Confederate Vice President Alexander H. Stephens maintained that Lincoln's attempt to resupply Sumter was a disguised reinforcement and had provoked the war.^[81] Following the Battle of Fort Sumter, Lincoln called for the states to send troops to recapture Sumter and all other federal property that had been seized in the seven seceding states^[82] 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 border states deciding to secede rather than provide troops that would be marching into neighboring Southern states. Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee and North Carolina joined the Confederacy, bringing the total to 11 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.

Incursions: 1862

Burnsides’ Bridge Battle of Antietam burying Union dead Antietam MD[83]

By the end of the Provisional Congress, February 17, 1862, much of northwest Virginia was controlled by the Union^[84]. Most of Missouri and Kentucky were “occupied, consolidated, and used as staging areas for advances further South”. Permanent Union occupation expanded to include northwestern Arkansas, south down the Mississippi River and east up the Tennessee River to Shiloh. Concurrently, the Union Blockade secured Fernandia and St. Augustine FL, New Berne NC, and Fort Pulaski GA. Union forces added northern Virginia, and control of the Mississippi south to Nashville TN, but by April 21, 1862, the Confederacy still controlled 72% of its population.^[85]

Union forces then pushed south along the Mississippi River to Memphis, allowing Federals to extend operations into northern Mississippi and northern Alabama. New Orleans was captured April 29, Federals seizing control of the mouth of the Mississippi River and establishing a large Union-occupied agricultural resource and sea-supplied logistics base. The Confederacy could never recapture it, and Union Blockade expanded its permanent occupation on the Atlantic to Beaufort SC, Hatteras NC, and Norfolk VA.^[86]

Two major Confederate incursions into Union territory were launched in August and September 1862. Both Braxton Bragg's invasion of Kentucky and Lee's invasion of Maryland were decisively repulsed and both Confederate armies barely escaped capture. Kentucky and Maryland remained in Union control, and by October 13, 1862 the Confederacy controlled but 63% of its population. It won a major victory at Fredericksburg December 13 repulsing Burnside's advance on Richmond.^[85]

Nevins (1960) argues that 1862 was the strategic high water mark of the Confederacy.^[87] The failures of the two invasions were attributed to the same irrecoverable shortcomings: lack of manpower, lack of supplies—they were without new shoes or boots—and exhaustion after long marches. Weak national leadership meant the disorganized overall direction stood in sharp contrast to the much improved organization in Washington. With another 10,000 men Lee and Bragg might have prevailed in the border states, but the local populations did not respond to their pleas to recruit additional soldiers.^[88]

Anaconda: 1863–1864

Bombardment of Vicksburg, Closing of Mobile Bay,

The Confederacy won another significant victory on April 26, 1863, repulsing the Federal advance on to Richmond at Chancellorsville VA, but the Union consolidated positions along the Virginia coast and the Chesapeake Bay. Federals maintained control of most of Tennessee, they advanced along the Mississippi River Valley to close on Vicksburg, and they seized permanent control of Baton Rouge.

The Union gained the Mississippi River following the capture of Vicksburg July 4 and Port Hudson July 8, effectively cutting the Confederacy in two. Victories in September and November followed at Knoxville and Chattanooga TN. Confederate operations in July brought draft riots in New York City, Morgan’s raid into Ohio and Robert E. Lee’s strike into Pennsylvania, which was subsequently repulsed at Gettysburg.

For the remainder of the war fighting was restricted inside the South, resulting in a slow but continuous loss of territory. In early 1864, the Confederacy still controlled 53% of its population, but facing Union campaigns for Atlanta and the Virginia Wilderness, it withdrew into more defensive positions. Union offensives continued when Sherman undertook his March to the Sea and Grant besieged Petersburg.^[89]

Mobile Bay was closed by the Union Blockade in August, sealing the Gulf coast east of the Mississippi River. In the western theater, Nashville was a major defeat for the Confederacy in December.

Collapse: 1865

The first three months of 1865 saw the Federal Carolina Campaign, devastating a wide swath of the Confederate heartland. The “breadbasket of the Confederacy” in the Great Valley of Virginia was occupied by Philip Sheridan. The Union Blockade captured Fort Fisher NC, and Sherman finally captured Charleston SC by land attack. In April 1865 the Confederacy controlled 34% of its population. ^[86]

Lee's surrender, Appomattox Armory, Richmond, Va

Senior Confederate officials met with Lincoln and his aides in February, but rejected Lincoln's invitation to return to the Union with compensation for slaves lost by emancipation. The Confederacy controlled no ports, harbors or navigable rivers. Railroads were captured or had ceased operating. Its major food producing regions had been war ravaged or occupied. Its administration extended to three pockets of territory in southern Virginia-North Carolina, central Alabama-Florida, and Texas.^[86] It’s armies were defeated or disbanding.

The Davis policy was independence or nothing, while Lee's army was wracked by disease and desertion, barely holding the trenches defending Jefferson Davis' capital. When the Union broke through Lee's lines at Petersburg, Richmond fell immediately. Lee raced west to escape, but his dwindling army was caught. His surrendering the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox VA on April 9, 1865 marked the end of the Confederacy. Some high officials escaped to Europe but President Davis was captured May 10; all remaining Confederate forces surrendered by June 1865. The U.S. Army took control of the Confederate areas without post-surrender insurgency or guerrilla warfare against the army, but disbanding the armies was subsequently marred by a great deal of local violence, feuding and revenge killings.^[90]

Historian Gary Gallagher concludes: "The Confederacy capitulated in the spring of 1865 because northern armies had demonstrated their ability to crush organized southern military resistance....Civilians who had maintained faith in their defenders despite material hardship and social disruption similarly recognized that the end had come.... Most 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."^[91]

"Died of states' rights"

Historian Frank Lawrence Owsley argued that the Confederacy "died of states' rights."^[3][92] 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."^[93][94]

Joseph E. Brown, Ga Governor Pendleton Murrah, Tx Governor A. Stephens, Vice President

In 1863 governor Pendleton Murrah of Texas insisted that his State needed Texas troops for self-defense (against Native Americans or against a threatened Union advance), and refused to send them East.^[95] 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.^[96]

Historian George Rable wrote:

For Alexander Stephens, any accommodation 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 [1864], 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.^[97]

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".^[98]

Despite political differences within the Confederacy, no political parties were formed. Historian William C. Cooper Jr. wrote that "at the birth of their new nation, Confederates, in the language of the Founding Fathers, denounced the legitimacy of parties. Anti-partyism became an article of political faith. Almost nobody, even Davis’s most fervent antagonists, advocated parties."^[99] This lack of a functioning two party system, according to historian David M. Potter, caused "real and direct damage" to the Confederate war effort since it prevented the formulation of any effective alternatives to the Davis administration's policies in conducting the war.^[100]

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 future of the Confederacy 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."^[101]

Government and politics

Constitution

Wikisource has original text related to this article: Constitution of the Confederate States of America

Main article: Confederate States 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 including provisions for the recognition and protection of negro slavery in any new state admitted to the Confederacy. It maintained the existing ban on international slave-trading while protecting the existing internal trade of slaves among slaveholding states.

Jefferson Davis President 1861–1865

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 also incorporated each of the 12 amendments to the U.S. Constitution that had been ratified up to that point.

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.^[102] 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 language of the United States Constitution, the Confederate Constitution overtly asked God's blessing ("...invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God...").

Executive

First Cabinet: J. Benjamin, S. Mallory, C. Memminger, A. Stephens, L. Walker, Jeff Davis, J.H. Reagan and R. Toombs.

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.

Confederate Executive, 1861–1865 Table of departments, officers and terms

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

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.

Legislative

Main article: Confederate Congress Provisional Congress, Montgomery, AL

The only two “formal, national, functioning, civilian administrative bodies” in the Civil War South were the Jefferson Davis administration and the Confederate Congresses. The Confederacy was begun by the Provisional Congress in Convention at Montgomery, Alabama on February 28, 1861. It had one vote per state in a unicameral assembly.^[103]

The Permanent Confederate Congress was elected and began its first session February 18, 1862. The Permanent Congress for the Confederacy followed the United States forms with a bicameral legislature. The Senate had two per state, twenty-six Senators. The House numbered 106 representatives apportioned by free and slave populations within each state. Two Congresses sat in six sessions until March 18, 1865.^[104]

The political influences of the civilian, soldier vote and appointed representatives reflected divisions of political geography of a diverse South. These in turn changed over time relative to Union occupation and disruption, the war impact on local economy, and the course of the war. Without political parties, key candidate identification related to adopting secession before or after Lincoln's call for volunteers to retake Federal property. Previous party affiliation played a part in voter selection, predominantly secessionist Democrat or unionist Whig.^[105]

The absence of political parties made individual roll call voting all the more important, as the Confederate “freedom of roll-call voting [was] unprecedented in American legislative history.^[106] Key issues throughout the life of the Confederacy related to (1) suspension of habeas corpus, (2) military concerns such as control of state militia, conscription and exemption, (3) economic and fiscal policy including impressment of slaves, goods and scorched earth, and (4) support of the Jefferson Davis administration in its foreign affairs and negotiating peace.^[107]

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 Provisional Confederate Congress First Confederate Congress Second 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 Confederate States as the national government.^[108]

Jesse J. Finley Florida District Henry R. Jackson Georgia District Asa Biggs North Carolina District Andrew Magrath South Carolina District

Confederate district courts were authorized by Article III, Section 1, of the Confederate Constitution,^[109] and President Davis appointed judges within the individual states of the Confederate States of America.^[109] 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 (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 front lines between Union and Confederate forces. Thus, the 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 Confederate 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.^[109] Where Federal troops gained control over parts of the Confederacy and re-established civilian government, US district courts sometimes resumed jurisdiction.^[110]

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

Post Office

Main article: Postage stamps and postal history of the Confederate States

John H. Reagan Postmaster General Jefferson Davis, 5 cent The 1st stamp, 1861 Andrew Jackson 2 cent, 1862 George Washington 20 cent, 1863

When the Confederacy was formed and its seceding states broke from the Union, it was at once confronted with the arduous task of providing its citizens with a mail delivery system, and, in the midst of the American Civil War, the newly formed Confederacy created and established the Confederate Post Office. One of the first undertakings in establishing the Post Office was the appointment of John H. Reagan to the position of Postmaster General, by Jefferson Davis in 1861, making him the first Postmaster General of the Confederate Post Office as well as a member of Davis' presidential cabinet. Through Reagan's resourcefulness and remarkable industry, he had his department assembled, organized and in operation before the other Presidential cabinet members had their departments fully operational.^[111][112]

When the war began, the US Post Office still delivered mail from the seceded states for a brief period of time. Mail that was postmarked after the date of a state's admission into the Confederacy through May 31, 1861 and bearing US postage was still delivered.^[113] After this time, private express companies still managed to carry some of the mail across enemy lines. Later, mail that crossed lines had to be sent by 'Flag of Truce' and was allowed to pass at only two specific points. Mail sent from the South to the North states was received, opened and inspected at Fortress Monroe on the Virginia coast before being passed on into the U.S. mail stream. Mail sent from the North to the South passed at City Point, also in Virginia, where it was also inspected before being sent on.^[114][115]

With the chaos of the war, a working postal system was more important than ever for the Confederacy. The Civil War had divided family members and friends and consequently letter writing naturally increased dramatically across the entire divided nation, especially to and from the men who were away serving in an army. Mail delivery was also important for the Confederacy for a myriad of business and military reasons. Because of the Union blockade, basic supplies were always in demand and so getting mailed correspondence out of the country to suppliers was imperative to the successful operation of the Confederacy. Volumes of material have been written about the Blockade runners who evaded Union ships on blockade patrol, usually at night, and who moved cargo and mail in and out of the Confederate States throughout the course of the war. Of particular interest to students and historians of the American Civil War is Prisoner of War mail and Blockade mail as these items were often involved with a variety of military and other war time activities. The postal history of the Confederacy along with surviving Confederate mail has helped historians document the various people, places and events that were involved in the American Civil War as it unfolded.^[116]

Civil liberties

The Confederacy actively used the army to arrest people suspected of loyalty to the United States. Historian Mark Neely found 4,108 names of men arrested and estimated a much larger total.^[117] The Confederacy arrested pro-Union civilians in the South at about the same rate as the Union arrested pro-Confederate civilians in the North.^[118] 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.^[119]

Economy

Main article: Economy of the Confederate States of America

Political Economy

The South as a region produced substantial wealth from cash crops. It supplied two-thirds of the world’s cotton, along with profit-making sugar, tobacco, and assorted grains. These were exported from the South as raw materials for the more diversified, industrialized regions in New England and Europe. Planters used credit in the money market, produced cash crops, took them to world markets, made profit, and reinvested in their ongoing enterprises. The end of the National Bank allowed each southern state legislature to control its own banking. Accumulated capital was invested abroad or it was invested predominantly in land and slaves, at home or in the expanding western frontier. Even with (a) the variables of agricultural production and market fluctuations, (b) the costs of credit and initial slave labor, and (c) the economic loss of runaways and the sunk cost to support the young, planters could make "substantially more money" planting than manufacturing.^[120]

New Orleans the largest port city of the South the only 1860 southern city over 100,000 population

The most distinctive feature of Southern economic life was racial slavery. Nearly four million black Southerners were the principle source of wealth, but they were also the source of general tension and white racial solidarity. William Freehling and Steven A. Channing have documented the race-based system of enslavement as “prone to insurrection and racial upheaval” inside the South, and by midcentury, its maintenance there was coming under increasing attacks from outside.^[121] Racism was a national character flaw in nineteenth century America, differing in degree only from section to section. But slavery was abandoned in other regions, leaving it the South’s “peculiar institution”. It was a relationship of management and labor as elsewhere, but a master-slave interaction “sui generis’’, a human enterprise of mutual economic indifference, racial hate and personal affection unlike slavery as practiced anywhere in the Western world.^[122]

Slave labor was applied in manufacturing in a limited way in the Upper South and in a few port cities. One reason for the regional lag in industrial development was “top-heavy income distribution”. Mass production requires mass markets, and slave-labor living in packed-earth cabins, using self-made tools and outfitted with one suit of work clothes each year of inferior fabric, did not generate consumer demand to sustain local manufactures of any description in the same way a mechanized family farm of free labor did in the North.^[123] The Southern economy was "pre-capitalist" in that slaves were employed in the largest revenue producing enterprises, not free labor. That labor system as practiced in the American South encompassed paternalism, whether abusive or indulgent, and that meant labor management considerations apart from productivity.^[124]

Approximately 85% of both North and South white populations lived on family farms, both regions were predominantly agricultural, and mid-century industry in both was mostly domestic. But the Southern economy was uniquely pre-capitalist in its overwhelming reliance on the agriculture of cash crops to produce wealth. Southern cities and industries grew faster than ever before, but the thrust of the rest of the country’s exponential growth elsewhere was towards urban industrial development along transportation systems of canals and railroads. The South was following the dominant currents of the American economic mainstream, but at a "great distance" as it lagged in the all-weather modes of transportation that brought cheaper, speedier freight shipment and forged new, expanding inter-regional markets.^[125]

A third count of southern pre-capitalist economy relates to the cultural setting. The South and southerners did not adopt a frenzied work ethic, nor the habits of thrift that marked the rest of the country. It had access to the tools of capitalism, but it did not adopt its culture. The Southern Cause as a national economy in the Confederacy was grounded in “slavery and race, planters and patricians, plain folk and folk culture, cotton and plantations”.^[126]

National production

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 Confederacy adopted a low tariff of 15 per cent, but imposed it on all imports from other countries, including the Union states.^[127] 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.^[128] But such efforts faced setbacks: Union raids and in particular Sherman's scorched-earth campaigning destroyed much economic infrastructure.^[129]

Transportation systems

Main article: Confederate railroads in the American Civil War

locomotive Fred Leach Orange & Alexandria Railroad[130]		Baltimore & Ohio Railroad 1860 map with connections

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.

At the end of 1860, the Southern rail network was disjointed and plagued by break of gauge as well as lack of interchange.^[131] In addition, most rail lines led from coastal or river ports to inland cities, with few lateral railroads. Due to this design limitation, the relatively primitive railroads of the Confederacy were unable to overcome the Union Naval Blockade of the South's crucial intra-coastal and river routes.

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.^[132] Many had to lay off employees, and in particular, let go skilled technicians and engineers.^[133] 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.^[134] 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. There was no new equipment and raids on both sides systematically destroyed key bridges, as well as locomotives and freight cars. Spare parts were cannibalized; feeder lines were torn up to get replacement rails for trunk lines, and the heavy use of rolling stock wore them out.^[135]

Financial instruments

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

The Confederate government initially financed the war effort mostly through tariffs on imports, export taxes, and voluntary donations of coins and bullion. However, after the imposition of a self-embargo on cotton sales to Europe in 1861, these sources of revenue dried up and the Confederacy increasingly turned to issuing debt and printing money to pay for war expanses. The Confederate States politicians were worried about angering the general population with hard taxes. A tax increase might disillusion many Southerners, so the Confederacy resorted to printing more money. As a result inflation increased and remained a problem for the southern states throughout the rest of the war.^[136]

$100 bill of November 1862, bearing image of John C. Calhoun

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. Since the mints used the current dies on hand, these issues remain indistinguishable from those minted by the Union.

However the four half dollars with a Confederate (rather than U.S.) reverse, mentioned below, used an obverse die that had a small crack. Thus "regular" 1861-O halves with this crack probably were among the 962,633 pieces struck under Confederate authority.^[137]

In 1861 plans also 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 an agreement, 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.

Devastation by 1865

By the end of the war deterioration of the Southern infrastructure was widespread. The number of civilian deaths is unknown. Most of the war was fought in Virginia and Tennessee, but every Southern state was affected as well as Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky Missouri, and Indian Territory. Texas and Florida saw the least military action. Much of the damage was caused by military action, but most was caused by lack of repairs and upkeep, and by deliberately using up resources. Historians have recently estimated how much of the devastation was caused by military action.^[138] Of 645 counties in 9 Confederate states (excluding Texas and Florida), there was Union military action in 56% of them, containing 63% of the 1860 white population and 64% of the slaves in 1860; however by the time the action took place some people had fled to safer areas, so the exact population exposed to war is unknown.

Potters House, Atlanta Ga downtown Charleston SC Navy Yard, Norfolk Va railroad bridge, Petersburg Va

The 11 Confederate states in the 1860 census had 297 towns and cities with 835,000 people; of these 162 with 681,000 people were at one point occupied by Union forces. Eleven were destroyed or severely damaged by war action, including Atlanta (with an 1860 population of 9,600), Charleston, Columbia, and Richmond (with prewar populations of 40,500, 8,100, and 37,900, respectively); the eleven contained 115,900 people in the 1860 census, or 14% of the urban South. Historians have not estimated what their actual population was when Union forces arrived. The number of people (as of 1860) who lived in the destroyed towns represented just over 1% of the Confederacy's 1860 population. In addition, 45 court houses were burned (out of 830). The South's agriculture was not highly mechanized. The value of farm implements and machinery in the 1860 Census was $81 million; by 1870, there was 40% less, worth just $48 million. Many old tools had broken through heavy use; new tools were rarely available; even repairs were difficult.^[139]

The economic losses affected everyone. Banks and insurance companies were mostly bankrupt. Confederate currency and bonds were worthless. The billions of dollars invested in slaves vanished. However, most debts were left behind. Most farms were intact but most had lost their horses, mules and cattle; fences and barns were in disrepair. Prices for cotton had plunged. The rebuilding would take years and require outside investment because the devastation was so thorough. One historian has summarized the collapse of the transportation infrastructure needed for economic recovery:^[140]

"One of the greatest calamities which confronted Southerners was the havoc wrought on the transportation system. Roads were impassable or nonexistent, and bridges were destroyed or washed away. The important river traffic was at a standstill: levees were broken, channels were blocked, the few steamboats which had not been captured or destroyed were in a state of disrepair, wharves had decayed or were missing, and trained personnel were dead or dispersed. Horses, mules, oxen, carriages, wagons, and carts had nearly all fallen prey at one time or another to the contending armies. The railroads were paralyzed, with most of the companies bankrupt. These lines had been the special target of the enemy. On one stretch of 114 miles in Alabama, every bridge and trestle was destroyed, cross-ties rotten, buildings burned, water-tanks gone, ditches filled up, and tracks grown up in weeds and bushes. . . . Communication centers like Columbia and Atlanta were in ruins; shops and foundries were wrecked or in disrepair. Even those areas bypassed by battle had been pirated for equipment needed on the battlefront, and the wear and tear of wartime usage without adequate repairs or replacements reduced all to a state of disintegration."

Flags

National flags

• 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

• Confederate Flag in some army units

Main article: Flags of the Confederate States of America

The first official flag of the Confederate States of America—called the "Stars and Bars" – originally had seven stars, representing the first seven states that initially formed the Confederacy. As more states seceded, more stars were added, until the total was 13 (two stars were added for the divided states of Kentucky and Missouri). However, during the Battle of Bull Run (or First Manassas) it sometimes proved difficult to distinguish the Stars and Bars from the Union flag. To rectify the situation, a separate "Battle Flag" was designed for use by troops in the field. Also known as the "Southern Cross", many variations sprang from the original square configuration. Although it was never officially adopted by the Confederate government, the popularity of the Southern Cross among both soldiers and the civilian population was a primary reason why it was made the main color feature when a new national flag was adopted in 1863. This new standard—known as the "Stainless Banner" – consisted of a lengthened white field area with a Battle Flag canton. This flag too had its problems when used in military operations as, on a windless day, it could easily be mistaken for a flag of truce or surrender. Thus, in 1865, a modified version of the Stainless Banner was adopted. This final national flag of the Confederacy kept the Battle Flag canton, but shortened the white field and added a vertical red bar to the fly end.

Because of its depiction in the 20th-century and popular media, many people consider the rectangular battle flag with the dark blue bars as being synonymous with "the Confederate Flag". This flag, however, was never adopted as a Confederate national flag, although it was adopted by the Army of Tennessee and other units. The "Confederate Flag" has a color scheme similar to the official Battle Flag, but is rectangular, not square. (Its design and shape matches the Naval Jack, but the blue bars are darker.) The "Confederate Flag" is the most recognized symbol of the South in the United States today, and continues to be a controversial icon.

States and flags

Member State	Flag	Ordinance of Secession	Date of Admission	Under predominant Union control	Readmitted to representation in Congress
South Carolina		Dec. 20, 1860	Feb. 8, 1861	1865	July 9, 1868
Mississippi		Jan. 9, 1861	Feb. 8, 1861	1863	Feb. 23, 1870
Florida		Jan. 10, 1861	Feb. 8, 1861	1865	June 25, 1868
Alabama		Jan. 11, 1861	Feb. 8, 1861	1865	July 13, 1868
Georgia		Jan. 19, 1861	Feb. 8, 1861	1865	1st Date July 21, 1868; 2nd Date July 15, 1870
Louisiana		Jan. 26, 1861	Feb. 8, 1861	1863	July 9, 1868
Texas		Feb. 1, 1861	March 2, 1861	1865	March 30, 1870
Virginia		April 17, 1861	May 7, 1861	1865; (1862/63 for West Virginia)	Jan. 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)		Oct. 31, 1861	Nov. 28, 1861	1861	Unionist govt. appointed by Missouri Constitutional Convention 1861
Kentucky (Russellville Convention)		Nov. 20, 1861	Dec. 10, 1861	1861	Elected Union and unelected rump Confederate governments from 1861

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 vast swamps (such as those in Florida and Louisiana) to semi-arid steppes and arid deserts west of longitude 100 degrees west. The subtropical climate made winters mild but allowed infectious diseases to flourish. Consequently, on both sides more soldiers died from disease than were killed in combat,^[141] a fact hardly atypical of pre–World War I conflicts.

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 were rare. Of the twenty largest U.S. cities in the 1860 census, only New Orleans lay in Confederate territory^[142] – 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 Confederate capital, reaching an estimated 128,000 in 1864.^[143] Other Southern cities in the Border slave-holding states such as Baltimore MD, Washington DC, Wheeling VA/WV and Alexandria VA, Louisville KY, and St. Louis MO, 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	22,619	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).

Demographics

The United States Census of 1860^[144] 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 #[145] Slaveholders	% of Free Population Owning Slaves[146]	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 11 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).^[147]

Military leaders

Military leaders of the Confederacy (with their state or country of birth and highest rank)^[148] included:

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 Francis Marion Cockrell (Missouri) – Brigadier General for CSA. Following the Civil War, he received a Presidential Pardon and served as U.S. Senator from Missouri for 30 years. 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 (Missouri) – Major General Jubal Anderson Early (Virginia) – Lieutenant General Richard Taylor (Kentucky) – Lieutenant General (Son of U.S. President Zachary Taylor) 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

General Robert E. Lee: for many, the face of the Confederate army George Pickett Virgina – Major General Patrick Cleburne (Ireland) – Major General William N. Pendleton (Virginia) – Brigadier General

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

See also

	North America portal
	American Civil War portal

• Conclusion of the American Civil War
• Confederados

• Confederate colonies
• Confederate Patent Office
• Confederate Post Office
• Confederate Seal
• Confederate war finance
• Golden Circle (proposed country)
• History of the Southern United States
• Prisoner of war prisons and camps
• Postage stamps and postal history of the Confederate States
• For the 2004 film: C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America

States below the Mason-Dixon Line - articles “in the American Civil War”

Alabama Arkansas Delaware

Florida Georgia

Kentucky Louisiana Maryland

Mississippi Missouri North Carolina

South Carolina Tennessee

Texas Virginia West Virginia

Notes

1. ^ ^{a b} "Preventing Diplomatic Recognition of the Confederacy, 1861–1865". U.S. Department of State. http://history.state.gov/milestones/1861-1865/Confederacy.
2. ^ McPherson, James M. (2007). This mighty scourge: perspectives on the Civil War. Oxford University Press US. p. 65. ISBN 9780195313666. http://books.google.com/?id=bJEINL6bakYC&pg=PA65&lpg=PA65&dq=confederacy+recognition.
3. ^ ^{a b} Frank L. Owsley, State Rights in the Confederacy (Chicago, 1925), and (Thomas, “The Confederate Nation”, pp.155.
4. ^ Cooper, William J.; Terrill, Tom E. (2009). The American South: a history. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. p. xix. ISBN 0-7425-6095-3.
5. ^ Thomas “The Confederate Nation” pp.3-4
6. ^ Thomas “The Confederate Nation” pp.4-5 and notes.
7. ^ The first six signatory states establishing the Confederacy counted about one-fourth its population. They voted 43% for pro-Union candidates. The four states which entered after Fort Sumter held almost half its population. They voted 53% for pro-Union candidates. The three big turnout states voted extremes. Texas at 5% population voted only 20% pro-Union candidates. Kentucky and Missouri with one-fourth the Confederate population as claimed, voted a combined 68% for the pro-Union Lincoln, Douglas and Bell. See Table of election returns at United States presidential election, 1860.
8. ^ Coulter, E. Merton, "The Confederate States of America 1861-1865" (1950) p.61. See also Avery O. Craven in "The Growth of Southern Nationalism 1848-1861" (1953) p.390.
9. ^ Thomas “The Confederate Nation” pp.7-8
10. ^ Thomas “The Confederate Nation” pp.7, 9
11. ^ Craven, Avery O., "The Growth of Southern Nationalism. 1848-1861" (1953) LSU Press ISBN 978-08-0-710006-6, p.350
12. ^ ^{a b} Freehling, William W. (1990). The Road to Disunion: Volume II, Secessionists Triumphant. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-505815-4. p. 398
13. ^ Craven, "The Growth of Southern Nationalism", p. 366
14. ^ Emory M. Thomas, The Confederate Nation: 1861–1865 (1979), pp. 83–84
15. ^ 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.
16. ^ Murrin, John (2001). Liberty, Equality, Power. p. 1000. ISBN 0-495-09176-6.
17. ^ McPherson pp. 232–233.
18. ^ McPherson pg. 244. The text of Alexander Stephens' "Cornerstone Speech".
19. ^ Davis, William C. (1994). A government of our own : the making of the Confederacy. New York: Free Press. pp. 294–295. ISBN 978-0-02-907735-1.
20. ^ "What I Really Said in the Cornerstone Speech".Stephens, Alexander Hamilton; Avary, Myrta Lockett. (1998). Recollections of Alexander H. Stephens : his diary kept when a prisoner at Fort Warren, Boston Harbor, 1865, giving incidents and reflections of his prison life and some letters and reminiscence. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. ISBN 978-0-8071-2268-6.
21. ^ The text of the Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union.
22. ^ The text of A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union.
23. ^ The text of Georgia's secession declaration.
24. ^ ^{a b} The text of A Declaration of the Causes which Impel the State of Texas to Secede from the Federal Union.
25. ^ Freehling, pp. 448+
26. ^ Freehling, p. 445
27. ^ Freehling, pp. 391–394
28. ^ Freehling, p.416
29. ^ Freehling, pp. 418+
30. ^ ^{a b c d} Freehling, p.503
31. ^ Holzer, Harold (2008). Lincoln president-elect : Abraham Lincoln and the great secession winter 1860–1861. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-7432-8948-1. p.429
32. ^ February 28, 1861, Congress authorized Davis to accept state militias into national service. Confederate Act of Congress for “provisionals” on March 6, 1861, authorized 100,000 militia and volunteers under Davis' command. May 6, Congress empowered Davis to accept volunteers directly without state intermediaries. Keegan, John. The American Civil War: a military history 2009. ISBN 978-0-307-26343-8, p. 49
33. ^ Thomas, Emory T., "The Confederate Nation: 1861-1865" 1979. ISBN 0-06-090703-7 Chapter 3. "Foundations of the Southern Nation".
34. ^ 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).

35. ^ Weigley (2000) p. 43 See also, Missouri's Ordinance of Secession.
36. ^ The text of South Carolina's Ordinance of Secession. Also, "South Carolina documents including signatories". Docsouth.unc.edu. http://docsouth.unc.edu/imls/southcar/south.html. Retrieved 2010-08-29.
37. ^ The text of Mississippi's Ordinance of Secession.
38. ^ The text of Florida's Ordinance of Secession.
39. ^ The text of Alabama's Ordinance of Secession.
40. ^ The text of Georgia's Ordinance of Secession.
41. ^ The text of Louisiana's Ordinance of Secession.
42. ^ The text of Texas' Ordinance of Secession.
43. ^ 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.
44. ^ The text of Arkansas' Ordinance of Secession.
45. ^ 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.
46. ^ The text of North Carolina's Ordinance of Secession.
47. ^ Curry, Richard Orr, A House Divided, A Study of Statehood Politics and the Copperhead Movement in West Virginia, Univ. of Pittsburgh Press, 1964, pg. 49
48. ^ The Civil War in West Virginia "No other state serves as a better example of this than West Virginia, where there was relatively equal support for the northern and southern causes."
49. ^ Snell, Mark A., West Virginia and the Civil War, Mountaineers Are Always Free, History Press, Charleston, SC, 2011, pg. 28
50. ^ Leonard, Cynthia Miller, The General Assembly of Virginia, July 30, 1619-January 11, 1978: A Bicentennial Register of Memebers, Virginia State Library, Richmond, VA, 1978, pgs. 478-493
51. ^ Rice, Otis K. and Stephen W. Brown, West Virginia, A History, Univ. of Kentucky Press, 1993, 2nd edition, pg. 112
52. ^ ""Marx and Engels on the American Civil War", Army of the Cumberland and George H. Thomas source page and "Background of the Confederate States Constitution", The American Civil War Home Page.
53. ^ Freedmen & Southern Society Project, of Emancipation during the Civil War, University of Maryland. Viewed January 4, 2012.
54. ^ Glatthaar, Joseph T., "General Lee's Army: from victory to collapse" 2008 ISBN 978-0-684-82787-2
55. ^ Bowman, p. 48.
56. ^ History of Arizona vol. 2 by Thomas Edwin Farish (1915) [1].
57. ^ 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.
58. ^ The Texas delegation was seated with full voting rights after its statewide referendum of secession on March 2, 1861. It is generally counted as an "original state" of the Confederacy. Four upper south states seceded following Lincoln's call for volunteers: Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee and North Carolina. "The founders of the Confederacy desired and ideally envisioned a peaceful creation of a new union of all slave-holding states, including the border states of Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri." Kentucky and Missouri were seated in December 1861. Kenneth C. Martis, The Historical Atlas of the Congresses of the Confederate States of America 1861-1865 (1994) p 8
59. ^ The sessions of the Provisional Congress were in Montgomery, Alabama, (1) First Session February 4- March 10, and (2) Second Session April 29-May 21, 1861. The Capital was moved to Richmond May 30. The (3) Third Session was held July 20- August 31. The (4) Fourth Session called for September 3 was never held. The (5) Fifth Session was held November 18, 1861 – February 17,1862.
60. ^ Martis, Historical Atlas, pp. 7-8.
61. ^ Martis, Historical Atlas, pp.2.
62. ^ ^{a b} William Seward to Charles Francis Adams, April 10, 1861 in Marion Mills Miller, (ed.) Life And Works Of Abraham Lincoln (1907) Vol 6.
63. ^ "The San Jacinto, having overhauled the British mail packet Trent, forces her to heave to. Confederate commissioners Mason and Slidell were taken off shortly afterward". Loc.gov. http://loc.gov/pictures/resource/cph.3c08243/. Retrieved 2011-05-17.
64. ^ "President Abraham Lincoln's Declaration of War". Sonofthesouth.net. 2007-01-26. http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/civil-war/1861/april/abraham-lincoln-declaration-war.htm. Retrieved 2010-08-29.
65. ^ "Lincoln Proclamation". NY Times. April 15, 1861. http://www.nytimes.com/1861/04/15/news/proclamation-president-seventy-five-thousand-volunteers-extra-session-congress.html.
66. ^ Moore, Frank (1861). The Rebellion Record. I. G.P. Putnam. pp. 195–197. ISBN 040510877X. http://books.google.com/?id=RKB2AAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Moore,%20Frank,%20#v=onepage&q=war%20exists%20between. Doc. 140
67. ^ Texas v. White, 74 U.S. 700 (1868) at Cornell University Law School Supreme Court collection.
68. ^ Blumenthal (1966)
69. ^ 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.
70. ^ Blumenthal (1966); Jones (2009); Owsley (1959)
71. ^ In November 1863, Confederate diplomat A. Dudley Mann met Pope Pius IX in Rome 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". 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. See Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion, p. 1015.
72. ^ Alexander DeConde, ed. Encyclopedia of American foreign policy (2001) vol 1 p 202 and Wise, Stephen R., Lifeline of the Confederacy: Blockade Running During the Civil War, University of South Carolina Press, 1991, ISBN 0872497992, 9780872497993, p. 86.
73. ^ Wise, Stephen R., Lifeline of the Confederacy: Blockade Running During the Civil War, University of South Carolina Press, 1991, ISBN 0872497992, 9780872497993, p. 86.
74. ^ Thomas, “The Confederate Nation” pp.219-220
75. ^ Scholars such as Emory M. Thomas have characterized Girard’s book as “more propaganda than anything else, but Girard caught one essential truth”, the quote referenced. (Thomas, “The Confederate Nation”, pp.220).
76. ^ Thomas, “The Confederate Nation” pp.220
77. ^ Thomas, “The Confederate Nation” pp.220, 219, 221.
78. ^ 1862blackCSN.
79. ^ Rubin p. 104.
80. ^ Levine pp. 146–147.
81. ^ Stephens, Alexander H. (1870) (PDF) A Constitutional View of the Late War Between the States 2 p. 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'..."
82. ^ Lincoln's proclamation calling for troops from the remaining states (bottom of page); Department of War details to States (top).
83. ^ Glatthaar, Joseph T., “General Lee’s Army: from victory to collapse”, Free Press 2008. ISBN 978-0-684-82787-2, p. xiv.
84. ^ Ambler, Charles, Francis H. Pierpont: Union War Governor of Virginia and father of West Virginia, Univ. of North Carolina, 1937, pg. 419, note 36. Letter of Adjutant General Henry L. Samuels, August 22, 1862, to Gov. Francis Pierpont listing 22 of 48 counties under sufficient control for soldier recruitment. Congressional Globe, 37th Congress, 3rd Session, Senate Bill S.531, Feb. 14, 1863 "A bill supplemental to the act entitled 'An act for the Admission of the State of 'West Virginia' into the Union, and for other purposes' which would include the counties of "Boone, Logan, Wyoming, Mercer, McDowell, Pocahontas, Raleigh, Greenbrier, Monroe, Pendleton, Fayette, Nicholas, and Clay, now in the possession of the so-called confederate government."
85. ^ ^{a b} Martis, Historical Atlas, pp. 27.
86. ^ ^{a b c} Martis, Historical Atlas, pp. 28.
87. ^ Nevin's analysis of the strategic highpoint of Confederate military scope and effectiveness is in contra-distinction to the conventional "last chance" battlefield imagery of the High-water mark of the Confederacy found at "The Angle" of the Battle of Gettysburg.
88. ^ Allan Nevins, War for the Union (1960) pp 289–90
89. ^ Martis (1994) pp. 28.
90. ^ The crew of the CSS Shenandoah hauled down the last Confederate flag at Liverpool in the UK on November 5, 1865. John Baldwin (Author), Ron Powers (Author). Last Flag Down: The Epic Journey of the Last Confederate Warship (May 6, 2008 ed.). Three Rivers Press. p. 368. ISBN 0307236560.
91. ^ Gallagher p. 157
92. ^ Owsley, "Local Defense and the Overthrow of the Confederacy", Mississippi Valley Historical Review 11 (Mar. 1925): 492–525, in JSTOR
93. ^ Rable (1994) 257
94. ^ For a detailed criticism of Owsley's argument see Richard E. Beringer, William N. Still. Jr., Archer Jones and Herman Hattaway, Why the South Lost the Civil War (1986) pp 443-57
95. ^ John Moretta; "Pendleton Murrah and States Rights in Civil War Texas," Civil War History, Vol. 45, 1999.
96. ^ Albert Burton Moore, Conscription and Conflict in the Confederacy. (1924) p. 295.
97. ^ Rable (1994) p. 258
98. ^ Rable (1994) p. 259.
99. ^ Cooper (2000) p. 462. Rable (1994) pp. 2–3. Rable wrote, "But despite heated arguments and no little friction between the competing political cultures of unity and liberty, antiparty and broader fears about politics in general shaped civic life. These beliefs could obviously not eliminate partisanship or prevent Confederates from holding on to and exploiting old political prejudices. Indeed, some states, notably Georgia and North Carolina, remained political tinderboxes throughout the war. Even the most bitter foes of the Confederate government, however, refused to form an opposition party, and the Georgia dissidents, to cite the most prominent example, avoided many traditional political activities. Only in North Carolina did there develop anything resembling a party system, and there the central values of the Confederacy's two political cultures had a far more powerful influence on political debate than did organizational maneuvering."
100. ^ David Herbert Donald, ed. Why the North Won the Civil War. (1996) p.112–113. Potter wrote in his contribution to this book, "Where parties do not exist, criticism of the administration is likely to remain purely an individual matter; therefore the tone of the criticism is likely to be negative, carping, and petty, as it certainly was in the Confederacy. But where there are parties, the opposition group is strongly impelled to formulate real alternative policies and to press for the adoption of these policies on a constructive basis. ... But the absence of a two-party system meant the absence of any available alternative leadership, and the protest votes which were cast in the [1863 Confederate mid-term] election became more expressions of futile and frustrated dissatisfaction rather than implements of a decision to adopt new and different policies for the Confederacy."
101. ^ Rable (1994) p. 265.
102. ^ Davis p. 248.
103. ^ Martis, Kenneth C., “The Historical Atlas of the Congresses of the Confederate States of America: 1861-1865” Simon & Schuster (1994) IBSN 0-13-389115-1 pp.1
104. ^ Martis, Historical Atlas, pp.1
105. ^ Martis, Historical Atlas, pp.72-73
106. ^ Martis, Historical Atlas, pp.3
107. ^ Martis, Historical Atlas, pp.90-91
108. ^ ""Legal Materials on the Confederate States of America in the Schaffer Law Library", Albany Law School". Albanylaw.edu. http://www.albanylaw.edu/sub.php?navigation_id=821. Retrieved 2010-08-29.
109. ^ ^{a b c} [Moise, E. Warren, Rebellion in the Temple of Justice (iUniverse 2003)]
110. ^ "Records of District Courts of the United States, National Archives". Archives.gov. http://www.archives.gov/research/guide-fed-records/groups/021.html. Retrieved 2010-08-29.
111. ^ "JOHN H. REAGAN – The Old Roman". John H. Reagan Camp #2156; Sons of Confederate Veterans . http://www.reaganscvcamp.org/. Retrieved 2010-11-17.
112. ^ "REAGAN, John Henninger, (1818–1905)". Biographical Directory of the United States. http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=r000098. Retrieved 2011-02-19.
113. ^ "U.S. Postal Issue Used in the Confederacy (1893)". Smithsonian National Postal Museum. http://arago.si.edu/index.asp?con=1&cmd=1&mode=&tid=2040514. Retrieved 2011-01-29.
114. ^ Walter Flavius McCaleb, "The Organization of the Post-Office Department of the Confederacy," American Historical Review Vol. 12, No. 1 (Oct., 1906), pp. 66–74 in JSTOR
115. ^ L. R. Garrison, "Administrative Problems of the Confederate Post Office Department I," Southwestern Historical Quarterly Vol. 19, No. 2 (Oct., 1915), pp. 111–141 and Vol. 19, No. 3 (Jan., 1916), pp. 232–250 in JSTOR and in JSTOR
116. ^ "Confederate States Post Office". Smithsonian National Postal Museum. http://arago.si.edu/index.asp?con=1&cmd=1&tid=2027888. Retrieved 2010-11-17.
117. ^ Neely (1999) p.1
118. ^ Neely (1999) p. 172. Neely notes that. "Most surprising of all, the Confederacy at a greater rate than the North arrested persons who held opposition political views at least in part because they held them, despite the Confederacy's vaunted lack of political parties. Such arrests were more common before 1863 while memories of the votes on secession remained fresh."
119. ^ Neely (1993) pp. 11, 16.
120. ^ Thomas “The Confederate Nation” pp.13-14
121. ^ Thomas “The Confederate Nation” p.10
122. ^ Thomas “The Confederate Nation” pp.11-12
123. ^ Thomas “The Confederate Nation” p.12
124. ^ Thomas “The Confederate Nation” pp.14-15
125. ^ Thomas “The Confederate Nation” pp.15-16
126. ^ Thomas “The Confederate Nation” p.16
127. ^ Tariff of the Confederate States of America, May 21, 1861.
128. ^ Ian Drury, ed (2003) [2000]. "American Civil War: Naval & Economic Warfare". History of war. London: Times Books. p. 138. ISBN 0007164580. "The Confederacy underwent a government-led industrial revolution during the war, but its economy was slowly strangled."
129. ^ Ian Drury, ed. (2003) [2000] "American Civil War: Naval & Economic Warfare" History of war London: Times Books p. 138 ISBN 0007164580 "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."
130. ^ Pictured here, the now Union locomotive after it escaped from Confederates on August 1, 1863 near Union Mills. Holes in the smokestack are from Confederate shot are visible.
131. ^ Hankey, John P. (2011). "The Railroad War". Trains (Kalmbach Publishing Company) 71 (3): 24–35.
132. ^ Charles W. Ramsdell, "The Confederate Government and the Railroads, American Historical Review, Vol. 22, No. 4 (July, 1917), p. 795.
133. ^ Charles W. Ramsdell The Confederate Government and the Railroads The American Historical Review, Vol. 22, No. 4 (July, 1917), p. 795.
134. ^ Mary Elizabeth Massey. Ersatz in the Confederacy (1952) p. 128.
135. ^ Ramsdell, "The Confederate Government and the Railroads," pp. 809–810.
136. ^ Richard Burdekin and Farrokh Langdana, "War Finance in the Southern Confederacy, 1861–1865", Explorations in Economic History, Vol 30, No 3, July 1993
137. ^ "The SS ''Republic'' Shipwreck Project: the Coin Collection, p.23" (PDF). http://www.shipwreck.net/pdf/OMEPaper7_000.pdf. Retrieved 2010-08-29.
138. ^ Paul F. Paskoff, "Measures of War: A Quantitative Examination of the Civil War's Destructiveness in the Confederacy," Civil War History, March 2008, Vol. 54 Issue 1, pp 35–62
139. ^ Paskoff, "Measures of War"
140. ^ John Samuel Ezell, The South since 1865 1963 pp 27–28
141. ^ Two-thirds of soldiers' deaths occurred due to disease. Nofi, Al (2001-06-13). "Statistics on the War's Costs". Louisiana State University. Archived from the original on 2007-07-11. http://web.archive.org/web/20070711050249/http://www.cwc.lsu.edu/other/stats/warcost.htm. Retrieved 2008-09-08.
142. ^ "U.S. Bureau of the Census, Population of the 100 Largest Urban Places: 1860, Internet Release date: June 15, 1998". http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0027/tab09.txt. Retrieved 2010-08-29.
143. ^ Dabney 1990 p. 182
144. ^ "1860 Census of Population and Housing". Census.gov. 2009-01-07. http://www.census.gov/prod/www/abs/decennial/1860.htm. Retrieved 2010-08-29.
145. ^ Form available for viewing at http://c.ancestry.com/pdf/trees/charts/1860Slave.pdf shows how data on slave ownership was collected.
146. ^ Calculated by dividing the number of owners (obtained via the census) by the number of free persons.
147. ^ All data for this section taken from the University of Virginia Library, Historical Census Browser, Census Data for Year 1860.
148. ^ Eicher, Civil War High Commands.

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
• Martis, Kenneth C. The Historical Atlas of the Congresses of the Confederate States of America 1861-1865 (1994) ISBN: 0133891151
• Wilentz, Sean, The Rise of American Democracy, W.W. Norton & Co., ISBN 0-393-32921-6

Bibliography

• Beringer, Richard E., William N. Still. Jr., Archer Jones and Herman Hattaway, Why the South Lost the Civil War (1986)
• Bonner, Robert E., “Proslavery Extremism Goes to War: The Counterrevolutionary Confederacy and Reactionary Militarism,” Modern Intellectual History, 6 (Aug. 2009), 261–85.
• Cooper, William J. Jr. Jefferson Davis, American. (2000); biography
• Coulter, E. Merton The Confederate States of America, 1861–1865, 1950
• 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.
• William C. Davis (2003). Look Away! A History of the Confederate States of America. New York: Free Press. ISBN 0-684-86585-8.
• Davis, William C. A Government of Our Own. (1994) ISBN 0-8071-2177-0
• 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
• Faust, Patricia L. ed, Historical Times Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Civil War, 1986
• Gallagher, Gary W., “Disaffection, Persistence, and Nation: Some Directions in Recent Scholarship on the Confederacy,” Civil War History, 55 (Sept. 2009), 329–53. Historiography
• Gallagher, Gary W. The Confederate War (1997) ISBN 0-674-16055-X
• Heidler, David S., and others. Encyclopedia of the American Civil War: A Political, Social, and Military History, 2002 2400 pages (ISBN 0-393-04758-X)
• Levine, Bruce Confederate Emancipation. (2006)
• McPherson, James M. Battle Cry of Freedom. (1988), standard military history of the war; Pulitzer Prize
• Martis, Kenneth C., “The Historical Atlas of the Congresses of the Confederate States of America 1861-1865” (1994) ISBN 0-13-389115-1
• Nevins, Allan. War for the Union (4 vol 1960–1971), the most detailed history of the war.
• Neely, Mark E., Jr., Confederate Bastille: Jefferson Davis and Civil Liberties (1993)
• Neely, Mark E. Jr. Southern Rights: Political Prisoners and the Myth of Confederate Constitutionalism. (1999) ISBN 0-8139-1894-4
• Rable, George C., The Confederate Republic: A Revolution against Politics, 1994
• Riggs, David F. "Robert Young Conrad and the Ordeal of Secession."The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 86, No. 3 (July 1978), pp. 259–274.
• Roland, Charles P. The Confederacy, (1960) brief survey
• Rubin, Sarah Anne A Shattered Nation: The Rise & Fall of the Confederacy 1861–1868 (2005)
• 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
• Weigley, Russell F. A Great Civil War: A Military and Political History, 1861–1865. (2000) ISBN 0-253-33738-0
• Woodworth, Steven E. ed. The American Civil War: A Handbook of Literature and Research, 1996 750 pages of historiography and bibliography

State studies

• Ayers, Edward L. and others. Crucible of the Civil War: Virginia from Secession to Commemoration (2008)
• Dollar, Kent, and others. Sister States, Enemy States: The Civil War in Kentucky and Tennessee (2009) excerpt and text search
• Fleming, Walter Lynwood. Civil war and reconstruction in Alabama (1905); 815 pages online edition
• Inscoe, John C. The Heart of Confederate Appalachia: Western North Carolina in the Civil War (2003) excerpt and text search
• Lee, Edward J. and Ron Chepesiuk, eds. South Carolina in the Civil War: The Confederate Experience in Letters and Diaries (2004), primary sources
• Smith, Timothy B. Mississippi in the Civil War: The Home Front (University Press of Mississippi, 2010) 265 pages; Examines the declining morale of Mississippians as they witnessed extensive destruction and came to see victory as increasingly improbable
• Wallenstein, Peter and Bertram Wyatt-Brown, eds. Virginia's Civil War (2009)

Economic and social history

• Bernath, Michael T. Confederate Minds: The Struggle for Intellectual Independence in the Civil War South (University of North Carolina Press; 2010) 412 pages. Examines the efforts of writers, editors, and other "cultural nationalists" to free the South from the dependence on Northern print culture and educational systems.
• Black, Robert C., III. The Railroads of the Confederacy, 1988.
• Bonner, Michael Brem. "Expedient Corporatism and Confederate Political Economy," Civil War History, 56 (March 2010), 33–65.
• 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
• 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.
• Riggs, David F. "Robert Young Conrad and the Ordeal of Secession."The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 86, No. 3 (July 1978), pp. 259–274.
• 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
• Wallenstein, Peter, and Bertram Wyatt-Brown, eds. Virginia's Civil War (2008) excerpt and text search
• Wiley, Bell Irwin Confederate Women, 1975
• Wiley, Bell Irwin The Plain People of the Confederacy, 1944
• Woods, James M. Rebellion and Realignment:Arkansas's Road to Secession. (1987)
• 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., and others., Why the Confederacy Lost, (1992)
• Cooper, William J, Jefferson Davis, American (2000), standard biography
• Downing, David C. A South Divided: Portraits of Dissent in the Confederacy. (2007). ISBN 978-1-58182-587-9
• Faust, Drew Gilpin. The Creation of Confederate Nationalism: Ideology and Identity in the Civil War South. (1988)
• Martis, Kenneth C., “The Historical Atlas of the Congresses of the Confederate States of America 1861-1865” (1994) ISBN 0-13-389115-1
• Rembert, W. Patrick Jefferson Davis and His Cabinet (1944).
• 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)

Foreign affairs

• Blumenthal, Henry. "Confederate Diplomacy: Popular Notions and International Realities," Journal of Southern History, Vol. 32, No. 2 (May, 1966), pp. 151–171 in JSTOR
• Daddysman, James W. The Matamoros Trade: Confederate Commerce, Diplomacy, and Intrigue. (1984)
• Foreman, Amanda. A World on Fire: Britain's Crucial Role in the American Civil War (2011) especially on Brits inside the Confederacy; excerpt and text search
• Hubbard, Charles M. The Burden of Confederate Diplomacy (1998)
• Jones, Howard. Blue and Gray Diplomacy: A History of Union and Confederate Foreign Relations (2009) excerpt and text search
• Merli, Frank J. The Alabama, British Neutrality, and the American Civil War (2004). 225 pp.
• Owsley, Frank. King Cotton Diplomacy: Foreign Relations of the Confederate States of America (2nd ed. 1959)

Primary sources

• Carter, Susan B., ed. The Historical Statistics of the United States: Millennial Edition (5 vols), 2006
• Commager, Henry Steele, ed. The Blue and the Gray, the Story of the Civil War as Told By Participants (2 vol.; 1950 and many reprints)
• 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

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Confederate States of America

Wikisource has the text of the 1879 American Cyclopædia article Confederate States of America.

• 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
• Confederate Currency
• Confederate Postage Stamps
• 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.
• Civil War records at the National Archives at Atlanta- includes Confederate records, such as Confederate court documents, Confederate records collected by the U.S. War Department during the Civil War and Confederate records collected by the Treasury Department during Civil War

Links to related articles Former Confederate States of America (CSA) Alabama Arkansas Florida Georgia Kentucky Louisiana Mississippi Missouri North Carolina South Carolina Tennessee Texas Virginia American Civil War (outline) Origins Origins / Issues Timeline leading to the War Antebellum era Bleeding Kansas Border states Dred Scott v. Sandford Missouri Compromise Secession States' rights Slavery African-Americans Emancipation Proclamation Fugitive slave laws Slave power Uncle Tom's Cabin Abolitionism John Brown Frederick Douglass William Lloyd Garrison Lysander Spooner Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Combatants Theaters Campaigns Battles States Combatants Union (USA) Army Navy Revenue Cutter Service Confederacy (CSA) Army Navy 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 Breckinridge Bocock Davis Mallory Memminger Seddon Stephens Union Military Anderson Buell Butler Burnside Du Pont Farragut Foote Fremont 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 U.S. Constitution 13th Amendment 14th Amendment 15th Amendment Reconstruction Alabama Claims Carpetbaggers Freedman's Bank Freedmen's Bureau Jim Crow laws Redeemers Southern Claims Commission Cemeteries Confederate memorials and cemeteries National cemeteries U.S. memorials and cemeteries Veterans Grand Army of the Republic Old soldiers' homes United Confederate Veterans Other topics Ku Klux Klan Lost Cause Related topics Categories Related topics Military Balloons Bushwhacker Cavalry Field artillery Military leadership Naval battles Official Records Signal Corps Turning points Political Committee on the Conduct of the War Copperheads Political General Radical Republicans Trent Affair War Democrats Confederate war finance Other topics Bibliography Draft Riots Music Naming the War National cemeteries Native Americans Photography Rail transport Supreme Court cases U.S. Sanitary Commission Historical reenactment Categories American Civil War People Battles Union Army generals Union armies Union Army corps Confederate States of America (CSA) Confederate Army generals Confederate armies Spies National Battlefields Veterans' organizations Medicine Museums Forts Old soldiers' homes Prisons Reconstruction U.S. memorials and cemeteries Confederate memorials and cemeteries American Civil War at sister projects American Civil War at Wiktionary Source texts at Wikisource Textbooks at Wikibooks Images and media at the Commons Quotations at Wikiquote News stories at Wikinews American Civil War portal Military History: American Civil War Special Project: Brothers at War 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

Categories:

• Former countries in North America
• States and territories established in 1861
• States and territories disestablished in 1865
• Confederate States of America
• Former political entities in North America
• Secession in the United States
• 1861 establishments
• 1865 disestablishments
• Former unrecognized countries
• History of the Southern United States
• Former confederations

 

Related 'Confederate States of America' Searches:

Related Terms:	Virginia	Carolina	Confederate States of America Dollar	Flags of the Confederate States of America
	Control	Congress	Thomas the Confederate Nation	Tariff of the Confederate States of America
	America	Secession	Confederate States of America	Armies of the Confederate States of America
	Civil	Secretary	Confederate Congress	Economy of the Confederate States of America
	Army	Confederate	Confederacy	Arizona Territory Confederate States of America

---

---

or search for "confederate states of america" in:		Web:		The Entire Web	Web Directory
		This Site:		Page Titles	This Site	Related Terms	Proximate Terms
		News:		Headlines	Events	Blogs
		Reference:		Encyclopedia	Dictionary	eTexts	Quotes
				Answers
		Multimedia:		Images	Videos	Audio
		People:		Discussion Groups	Social Networking
		Shopping:		General Merch.	Consumer Info		Classifieds

 

See Also:

• Education In the United States
• Long Island Museum of American Art, History, And Carriages
• Organization of Ibero-american States
• Regional: North America
• Regional: North America: Canada
• Regional: North America: Canada: Arts and Entertainment
• Regional: North America: Canada: Arts and Entertainment: Music
• Regional: North America: Canada: Arts and Entertainment: Music: Styles
• Regional: North America: Canada: Arts and Entertainment: Music: Styles: Rock
• United States Environmental Protection Agency

---

Everywhere This Site Only Page Titles Only Related Terms Proximate* Terms The Entire Web Web Directory Local Places* News Headlines Weather Events Blogs Encyclopedia Dictionary eTexts Quotes Answers Videos Images Audio Social Networking Discussion Groups Products Classifieds Consumer Info

Sitemap Web News Dictionary Encyclopedia Blogs Answers Videos Images Products More…